Interview with Dr. Keitlyn Alcántara

on passion for research and community

Today I’m interviewing Dr. Keitlyn Alcántara, a long-time Success & Accountability Coaching client.

Dr. Keitlyn Alcántara is an anthropologist interested in the ways our bodies and lived experiences exist in collaboration with the other-than-human beings around us (trees, fungi, wind, viruses). A Mexican-American with a nomadic childhood, she explores how foodways carry memories and values about how to exist in the world. She is inspired by the food sovereignty work of rural farmers in Central Mexico, who lean on decolonial social and ecological models to build alternative frameworks of being. She believes in challenging power hierarchies that value academic experts above community knowledge keepers, and works to equitably meld academic research and community interests to create impactful social change. 

Kate: Hi Keitlyn! Thank you for agreeing to chat with me about our work together over the last four years through Success & Accountability Coaching! You and I share a fun backstory: we were close friends in elementary school! We lost touch for a while when you moved away but reconnected decades later when we were both finishing our PhDs. Could you share more about what made you decide to pursue coaching with me? 

Keitlyn: Thanks for inviting me! I remember that the second to last year of my PhD, I was feeling so much pressure to finish, while also looking for jobs, and just living in a constant anxiety spiral. I think you’d started your blog, The Tending Year, that same year, and it spoke to what I was searching for - time to reflect, align my values with my actions, and learn to let go of all that tension in my body. I took an extra year to finish my PhD with intentionality, reading your blog posts along the way, and when I started my first position as a professor (with a whole new menu of external pressures!), I wanted to head into it with the support of someone who would keep me accountable to challenging what was expected of me. Working with you has helped me focus on moving at my own pace, and embracing a model of research and teaching that centers play, creativity, reflection, and relationships, instead of isolation and perfectionism. 

Kate: I’ve been honored to coach you while you developed some exciting projects over the last four years, including the Healing Garden, your documentary, Comida Como Resistencia, and now your first academic book. What has it been like balancing traditional “professor work” (research, teaching, service, publishing) alongside these complex and rewarding projects–and how has coaching helped in overcoming challenges that came up?

Keitlyn: It is so easy to feel like there isn’t enough time to rest, to daydream, to just BE when you work within institutions that see you as a product. There are so many things I enjoy about teaching and research, but as a professor, you’re there to make the university look good, not necessarily to tend to the vessel that holds your passion, your energy, your being. Working with you became a place for me to check in on that balance, and more often than not, realize I’d tipped over into a super anxious production machine. The creative projects I’ve done, ironically, the ones that have garnered the most institutional attention, could only have happened because you helped me pause, reassess, and make space to recharge my beyond-academic self. The inner child that got bored grading quizzes, and so instead, invited students to learn and demonstrate their knowledge by harvesting and processing herbs together in the garden. Or the part of me that hated my super technical thesis and so mixed it with clips of the beautiful landscapes and fascinating conversations I had with the farmers I worked with to make a documentary we could all share. Colleagues might see these activities as a “waste of time” or “non productive”, but honestly, they are what keep me going, and bring me so much satisfaction. 

Kate: It’s clear that you value creativity, nature, and community–things that exist outside of work. How has your approach to your productivity and your creative life changed over the course of working together?

Keitlyn: I’m going to use a plant metaphor :) Institutions are like monocropped fields - the goal is to make a product on a particular timeline, and that product should look a particular way, so that it can fit easily into the production plan. But this plan is so strict, that there are a million ways to fail. Your article got rejected, or you got sick and fell behind on research, or you’re burnt out and can’t keep moving forward. If things don’t follow a particular timeline, in a set order, you can do 50 things well, but that 1 thing you got wrong ruins it all. But in fields that grow freely, their strength is biodiversity - wildflowers and grasshoppers and worms and fungi - life flourishes when there are many sources of input, many definitions of success. I’m about 50/50 monocrop/wildflower because it’s really hard to unlearn, but for me that has meant things like letting go of deadlines and asking for extensions; enjoying stimulating conversations for conversation sake, not publications; filling my life with things that aren’t immediately relevant - like rollerskating, or walks - that ultimately give me space to be able to notice and value all the different ways that my life, and the world around me IS working, in a lot of wonderful ways.   

Kate: One of my favorite tasks we’ve worked on in our coaching sessions is supporting you in drafting and revising your book, which will be published in 2025. Could you share what has felt helpful to you about those coaching sessions?

Keitlyn: I love those sessions too! I think the most helpful thing has been that I can come in and idea vomit without judgment, and you have this amazing capacity to hold space (and a million tangential ideas), and help nudge me towards what was already there in my head, but that I couldn’t see yet. When I started writing the book, it felt like such a huge project, and I felt pressure to write “like an academic” which just left me spinning out about whether I knew enough, or was writing in the right way. But you let my inner plant nerd flow, encouraging me to show what I was most excited about, and helping me organize those thoughts into coherent chapters that weren’t trying to prove anything to anyone. The book became about sharing a passion, an excitement, and looking forward to who all will also find joy and inspiration in the story. 

Kate: I like to end my interviews asking about something folks feel hopeful about. In the broad realm of your work–within and/or outside of academia–what is bringing you hope right now?

Keitlyn: I feel hope in how many ways there are to learn, create, and be curious about the world, not just in a formal academic way. I’ve found teachers in little kids, elders, watching ants, hanging out with my cat, and these spaces make me see beyond these “end of the world” narratives we are so surrounded with. One world might be ending, but look how many other ones there are out there to take its place! 

Kate: Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your insights and stories with us today, Keitlyn! I look forward to continuing to support you and watching you thrive.

If any readers or listeners are curious about Success & Accountability Coaching, I’m currently accepting three new clients to begin coaching packages in August and September.

You can learn more about coaching here and read client testimonials here. If you think coaching could be helpful for you, I invite you to book a free 30-minute call where we can discuss how I can support you in your scholarly, professional, and personal projects.

Take care and talk soon,

Dr. Kate