How do scientists explain their careers – through choice, chance, or constraint? A new article by the In-Forest team examines how forest governance scholars enact agency and luck when speaking about their scientific trajectories and choices. Published in Science and Public Policy, the study shows how their narratives reflect structural inequalities in global science related to gender and geography. Its findings highlight the importance of policies that foster epistemic autonomy and gender-inclusive career conditions. 

The article draws on 19 interviews with African and European forest scholars conducted as part of the In-Forest project. Combining a sociological lens on inequality with an integrative analytical approach sensitive to linguistic expressions, we trace how discursive patterns relate to geographical location and gender. 

Our results indicate that both of these social dimensions have an impact on how researchers narrate their professional paths: European often framed their careers as resulting from their agentic choices, whereas African scholars frequently brought up the role of luck and external circumstances as shaping their academic trajectories.  They particularly framed research opportunities overseas and international collaborations as ‘lucky chances’ for their career progression, even when these did not align with their previous epistemic interests nor enhanced their scope of agency. 

Gender differences appeared in subtler ways. While men talked about luck in relation to professional opportunities only (e.g., being at the right time and place for funding and positions, or forging networks in international spaces), women – from both Africa and Europe – repeatedly referred to luck in relation to their private life circumstances – such as having family support, or not (yet) having kids at a certain crucial stage in their career.

We argue that these discursive patterns reflect scholars’ subjective experiences of structural conditions and societal orders. As these have been shown to be decisive for career aspirations, they not only reflect but also reproduce social stratifications in global science.  

The study offers important implications for science policy. First, international mobility and cooperation schemes need to foster the epistemic agency of scholars from the Global South, beyond supporting movement and collaboration across borders. Second, the results signal a disjuncture between gender equality initiatives and lived realities in academia. When women frame ‘not having children’ or ‘having a supportive partner’ as luck allowing them to persist in academia, they imply that motherhood and caregiving remain structurally incompatible with scientific careers. To be effective, policy must not only support women through equality measures but transform conditions of scientific work to remove this incompatibility.  

Full reference:  https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scaf095