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When I began my PhD, I assumed that having an interdisciplinary background would make positioning my research straightforward. I had already moved across fields during my undergraduate and master’s studies, so I felt comfortable working between disciplines. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was how different it would feel at doctoral level, where intellectual positioning suddenly carries much more weight.

I remember early on trying to decide which conferences to attend or submit to and realising I wasn’t entirely sure where my work belonged. My project intersects with gender studies, food studies and cultural studies as well as touching on areas such as migration and Italian studies. But identifying which of these fields should anchor my research was not immediately clear. Each option felt partially right, but never entirely so. In fact, it’s only recently that I have become more confident in my intellectual positioning. For much of my first year – and the beginning of my second year – I sat with that uncertainty. Interdisciplinary research often involves a kind of academic code-switching: adjusting how you frame your work depending on your audience. In one space, your project might seem too theoretical; in another, not theoretical enough. Over time, I found myself not only navigating different fields but also trying to understand where I felt intellectually at home.

Nevertheless, it took a while for me to get to this point. Interdisciplinary training had given me breadth, but not always the depth that comes from being rooted in a single discipline. In seminars and conferences, I sometimes felt I was still mapping the key theorists, core debates and intellectual histories that others seemed to know instinctively. There can be an unspoken sense that everyone has already mastered a shared canon, while you are still trying to piece it together. A significant part of my early PhD involved reading widely and, at times, somewhat indiscriminately, moving across different fields in an attempt to understand where my work might sit. Alongside this, I attended as many events as I could, both in person and online, often anything that seemed even loosely related to my research.

At first, this felt quite uncomfortable. Stepping into unfamiliar academic spaces – often on my own – meant navigating conversations, terminology and expectations that I didn’t yet feel fully confident in. There was a certain vulnerability in not quite knowing whether I ‘belonged’ in those spaces. Not all of them felt like a perfect fit – in fact, many didn’t feel like they fit at all – but that turned out to be useful. Over time, what initially felt uncomfortable became an important part of the process. Paying close attention to where my work resonated and where it didn’t become an important way of clarifying my own thinking. In retrospect, those moments of discomfort were often the ones that pushed me to reflect most carefully on how I wanted to position my work and ultimately helped me arrive at a clearer sense of direction.

Interestingly, engaging with these unfamiliar spaces helped me better understand not only where my work could fit, but also where I didn’t want to position myself. Realising why something felt slightly misaligned was just as important as finding spaces that felt productive. In some cases, I found myself attending talks or reading literature where my research only partially connected – interesting but not quite the conversation I wanted to be part of. In others, I noticed that while my work was relevant, the questions being asked or the frameworks being used didn’t fully capture what I was trying to explore. Paying attention to these moments of friction became an important part of the process. Gradually, this allowed me to move away from trying to sit comfortably in every related field and towards making more intentional choices about my intellectual positioning.

Instead of asking where my work could fit, I began to ask where I wanted it to contribute and which conversations felt most generative for my thinking. I began to see my work more clearly as feminist oral history, engaging primarily with gender studies and partially with food studies through their social, cultural and emotional dimensions. This also meant recognising what I am not doing – I’m not focusing on food systems or ecology, nor am I approaching food primarily through history or culinary practice. Instead, I’m interested in how food operates as a site of memory, identity and lived experience. Arriving at that position wasn’t about narrowing my interests but about finding a clearer and more confident way to articulate them – both to others and to myself.

If you’re navigating similar questions about where your research ‘fits’, know that you’re not alone. Finding your intellectual home can take time – and it often involves exploring multiple spaces before choosing the conversations you most want to contribute to. For me, one of the most helpful shifts was moving away from the idea that I needed to position my work perfectly from the outset. Instead, I began to see it as something that develops through reading, conversations and a certain amount of trial and error. Interdisciplinary research can sometimes feel like existing in the in-between. But that in-between space is also where new connections are made and where some of the most interesting questions begin.

By: Ilaria Ravazzolo