Lee Higgins writes
In May 2025, I was voted the Students’ Union Postgraduate Supervisor of the Year at York St John University. These things come as a surprise, of course. You hope you’re doing a decent job, and I guess sometimes it feels that way, and sometimes it doesn’t. My subject area is community music, and I direct the International Centre for Community Music. In recent years, I’ve supervised projects that have dealt with music and cultural policy, trauma-informed practice, LGBTQ+ choirs, people experiencing forced migration, and pedagogy, to name but a few.
As a result of the award, I was invited to contribute to this blog as a chance to reflect upon my supervisory approach and offer any insights I might have. Although I do critically think about this work often, it isn’t something I have ever expressed in writing – or indeed ever thought about doing. I can say, though, that my mantra has been ‘journeying together’. I always try and reinforce this notion, either verbally or through actions. I hope that, as an idea, it underlines how I conceptualize the relationship. That is, a collaborative enterprise that has a shifting power dynamic across the duration of postgraduate study.
Drawing from the work of Jacques Derrida (2000), Emmanuel Levinas (2006), and John Caputo (1997), I might posit that supervision is an ‘act of hospitality’. Beginning with a ‘call’ to be worked with, potential students await a welcoming invitation to begin the process of supervision. I would suggest that the welcome can be understood as an ethical gesture, an open invitation to build a relationship with another person. The supervisor is prompted to say “yes” to ensure the exchange becomes a collaborative encounter. The simple act of saying “yes” is vital because it requires a conscious decision and, in so doing, provides the opportunity for acceptance. Within the realm of the impossible, meaning something whose possibility one did not and could not foresee, one might be bold and say that this type of welcome is without reservation. By thinking this way, by reaching out beyond what may be thought possible, a supervisor evokes an openness to the journey where new and interesting things can happen.
It is important to remember, however, that hospitality also alerts us to the imbalances of power within human relationships. From a glance at its etymology, we can see that its Latin roots are common to both the words ‘host’ and ‘hostile’. From such a vantage point, postgraduate supervisors need to negotiate this two-sided coin as they facilitate constructive and critical conversations. On one side, there are aspirations to relinquish control, edging the student towards ‘complete’ independence, ensuring creative ownership of their research and a confidence in their own ‘voice’. On the other side, I always try to be mindful of the power I have and the responsibility that comes with the status of supervisor.
I have found that thinking of the supervisory process as an act of hospitality has been useful as a reminder that an invitation to work on a research project together should be given with full knowledge of the tensions and challenges inherent within such a collaborative enterprise. If you get the balance ‘right’, it can result in an experience of connectivity that can result in a long-lasting and rewarding relationship for both supervisor and student.
Caputo, J. D. (1997). The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion. Indiana University Press.
Derrida, J. (2000). Of Hospitality (R. Bowlby, Trans.). Stanford University Press.
Levinas, E. (2006). Humanism of the Other (N. Poller, Trans.). University of Ilinois Press.
Lee Higgins is a professor at York St John University, UK and the Director of the International Centre for Community Music. His Ph.D. is from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, Limerick, Ireland. As a presenter and guest speaker, he has worked on four continents in university, school, and NGO settings and was the President of the International Society of Music Education from 2016 to 2018. He was the senior editor for the International Journal of Community Music (2007-2021), author of Community Music: In Theory and in Practice (2012, OUP),and Thinking Community Music (2024, OUP), co-author of Engagement in Community Music (2017, Routledge) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Community Music (2018).