“ There are lots of new faces this year… I’m not entirely sure when I became one of the old ones ”: a psycho-ethnography of the self at #PoWESconf five years in

Conferences have been discussed as spaces for academic work to extend beyond the confines of one’s institution, fostering environments of collaborative working, learning, and social bond-making. The British Psychological Society’s Psychology of Women and Equalities Section hosts an annual conference, attended by feminist scholars from around the world. Drawing on auto-ethnography and psycho-biography, this paper presents a ‘psycho-ethnography of the self’ with reflections centred on: ‘Scholarship’, ‘Feminist Praxis’; ‘(Safe) Academic Spaces’; and ‘Positioning the Self’. This article contributes to a small, but growing body of literature critically reflecting on conferences as spaces for personal and professional development and academic growth.