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‘It was their independence of mind and autonomy that I admired.’ PROFESSOR JACQUIE L’ETANG PROFESSOR, MEDIA, COMMUNICATION AND PERFORMING ARTS Along with my colleague Dr Magda Pieczka my work since the early 1990s has been concerned with stimulating and extending critical perspectives in public relations and opposing the dominant functional agenda in the field. Starting my academic career in a positivist discipline in a positivist marketing department forced me to question the status quo and to articulate alternative perspectives, however uncomfortable. A major part of my work has been concerned with the histories, herstories and historiographies of the public relations field, and the role of communications in societal change. O E R A T I N G L B WOMEN RESEARCHERS INSPIRING RESEARCH CAREER JOURNEYS I have written and co-edited several books, the most recent are: a collected volume of historical essays (2014), a text on sports public relations (2013) and a collection of more than 30 monographical essays on critical public relations (2015, in press). Although I was not taught by any women during my first degree in English & American History at the University of East Anglia in the mid 1970s, subsequently I interviewed feminist academics, Cora Kaplan and Jacqueline Rose (while working at The British Council); social psychologist Hilda Himmelweit and sociologist Eileen Barker (while working at the London School of Economics) – they were my main role models and inspirations for moving into an academic career. It was their independence of mind and autonomy that I admired.