{"id":1904,"date":"2026-03-19T17:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/?p=1904"},"modified":"2026-03-19T17:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:48:17","slug":"life-on-the-outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/2026\/03\/19\/life-on-the-outside\/","title":{"rendered":"Life on the outside"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last year I wrote a post called &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/2025\/08\/27\/coming-of-age-in-the-humanities\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1875\">Coming of age in the Humanities<\/a>,&#8217; reflecting on the state of Australian universities and the rolling restructures and cuts that have become part of academic life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is now twelve months since my last fixed term university contract ended (a postdoctoral fellowship with University of Tasmania). Apart from a couple of casual teaching contracts I have spent the past year working as a professional historian and archives consultant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In that time I have worked on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>a large research project for the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>a workshop on AI for historians, developed with Deborah Lee-Talbot and Lauren Booker and delivered at UNSW Canberra<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>archives projects with Down Syndrome Victoria, Save the Dandenongs League, the Girls and Boys Brigade, and Camberwell Girls Grammar School<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>an archives and collections project with Coranderrk Aboriginal Station<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>a collections survey for Darebin City Council<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>a computer game under development by Melbourne-based startup Akali Labs<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the preservation and digitisation of records for a car club and a family archive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of these projects are still in progress, and some are likely to develop into further work. I also have a few more projects in the pipeline that I hope will be confirmed soon, along with an announcement about the next phase of the business\u2014stay tuned!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Work has come through a number of channels. I have been contacted through the Australian Society of Archivists and the Professional Historians Association (Victoria &amp; Tasmania), and have received referrals through colleagues and friends. Two of the projects came about after I responded to a LinkedIn post. I was asked to develop the AI workshop because of the <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/1031461X.2023.2267586\">State of the Field review essay on digital history<\/a> I co-authored with Alana Piper; and I was curious to learn that two potential clients used AI themselves to try and find a suitable consultant and landed on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For others considering working for themselves, it&#8217;s not always easy. Over the year I&#8217;ve had periods where the gaps between invoices have been large enough to make cash-flow a  concern, and periods where I&#8217;ve had so many things happening at the same time I&#8217;ve had to work long hours to stay on top of the work. This year there has already been a month where those two things happened simultaneously. But I have also enjoyed being my own boss and exploring opportunities to combine practical advice and support with research-based, theoretical work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Habits formed while working in academia are hard to break. I still hold unpaid positions on committees and peer review articles for journals. I&#8217;ve co-authored a book chapter, and continue working with academic colleagues on an edited anthology that, like many such books, will pay very little (if it pays anything at all); and in the coming months I&#8217;m running a workshop for a small honorarium and presenting at a conference free of charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this way of working has its own value. While some of these activities might lead to further work, I&#8217;m less interested in return on investment than in building and maintaining relationships with people and communities that have shared interests. As I said in my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/2025\/08\/27\/coming-of-age-in-the-humanities\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1875\">last post<\/a>, its about finding ways to keep doing work I think is important, and exploring opportunities to do interesting work with interesting people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I keep focusing on that, hopefully the dollars will take care of themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On life and work since leaving academia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[165,66,298,45,296,297],"class_list":["post-1904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archives","tag-collections","tag-consultant","tag-digital-humanities-2","tag-freelance","tag-professional-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/OutsideNLA-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2X6WE-uI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1904"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1912,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904\/revisions\/1912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}