An unrecognized avenue for academias most vulnerable: conceptualizing rescue supervision in the third space

Graduate research supervision impacts student mental health, candidature completion and, by extension, shapes the next generation of the academic workforce. Graduate research students have the choice to leave unsuitable supervisory arrangements and find a rescue supervisor; however, the process of supervisory change is rarely discussed transparently in doctoral education literature. This chapter is a collaborative autoethnography between two Australian graduate research students and the rescue supervisor they both chose after leaving their previous supervisory arrangements. Together, the three of us provide a reflective, integrated account of both the student and the rescue supervisor following supervisory change. Our findings illustrate the increasing importance of aligned publishing expectations in an increasingly neoliberal supervisory environment. Our experiences of supervisory change align with previous accounts of the stigma and political alienation graduate students face when changing the supervisory team. Following this, we provide the first characterization of a rescue supervisor employed in a third space role in a university and highlight how the unique attributes of third space academics can make them especially effective rescue supervisors. Given the accelerating destabilization of graduate research supervision, and the expanding third space workforce of universities, this chapter characterizes a novel, viable alternative for students in need of changing supervisory teams.