Hi all,

I am currently doing a research stay at another university & have been asked to give an internal seminar about what I'm working on right now. They have asked that the chapter be circulated beforehand. Is this common practice (I am in Social Science)? I don't feel comfortable sharing a 40page chapter that I aim to publish. I have had a bad experience in the past sharing work with faculty members elsewhere who then used the work for themselves and I don't trust my current supervisory team here either, given they have been purposefully unhelpful and unwelcoming/uninterested in me until now.
Can I stand my ground and just send an abstract?

Thank you for your help!

I would never agree to this.
During my PhD you would have been hard pressed to get me to talk about ongoing work until it was published. Anyone even thinking of asking me to hand over an entire 40 page manuscript prior to publication would have been rewarded with peals of laughter from me.

It sounds odd but must be the norm there. It is up to you though and v.important to do what you're comfortable with doing. Personally I'd say "I prefer to circulate the abstract only".

I'm not as particular about ongoing work as pm133 is - in my field it's unlikely anyone is going to pip me to the post with what I'm doing. But I would just want to send the abstract in, so that's what I would do.

To be fair, I have only found a couple of people like me. Most are happy to take input as they go through their work which is presumably why they talk about it.
Personally it is more important to me that my work was as close to being entirely my own as possible otherwise it loses meaning to me. I see it as both maintaining the purity and authenticity of what I am doing and I would rather deal with the struggle than seek help other than on a very rare basis. I usually never value input or suggestions from people whilst I am in the middle of things. That probably also comes from a hatred of not being entirely on top of the material and looking like an idiot until I have written it up and had it peer reviewed. I also don't trust people I don't know. This is my default setting from years of experience of being shafted in a myriad of different ways. Another thing is that i dont get inspired by what others do. I find it stressful and pressurising. I hate being rushed.