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CHAPTER THREE ACADEMIC IDENTITY: IDENTIFICATION WITH NUL OR THE PROFESSION?
Introduction
Individuals basically have four identities; (1) social identities which differentiate or show similarities between people such as being a man, a woman, black or white (Swann & Bosson, 2008:448); (2) personal identities which denote individual uniqueness and own set of characteristics like names, personal histories and aspects of personality that define an individual as unique such as being intelligent or athletic (Swann & Bosson, 2008:448; Vryan et al. 2003:371); (3) primary identities such as gender, kinship, ethnic identities which are ascribed at birth and (4) secondary identities which are acquired during secondary socialisation processes such as accountant, teacher, and hairdresser (Lawson, Jones & Moores, 2000:1).
Interest in identity is facilitated by an ever increasing interest in the practices and strategies used in its formation, especially in the agency that actors exercise in constructing them (Brown, 2014:23; Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010:135). Thus, different sociologists have attempted to explain identity meteoritic rise (Brown, 2014:22). For example, Lasch (1979) attributes it to the modern ‘narcissistic culture’, Baumeister (1986) to the disappearance of traditional means of self-definition such as gender or social rank and Rose (1991) to the increased attention on identity as an indicator for individual autonomy. Bauman (2000) attributes it to the pressure that social change exerts on individuals to construct ‘liquidly modern’ selves; that is, significant changes overtime in behaviour patterns have transitioned individuals from ‘pilgrims’ in search of deeper meaning of who they are, to ‘tourists’ in search of multiple but fleeting social experiences.
Therefore for sociologists identity is a kind of interface or a conceptual bridge between the individual and society (Brown, 2014:23) which depicts various identifications and meanings that an individual has with certain social formations (Lawson & Garrod, 2001:116) or with parts of the self that are composed of meanings that are attached to the roles that one plays in modern-day life (Stryker & Burke, 2000:284). However, since identity neither imprisons nor detaches people from their social and symbolic universes (Brown, 2014:20), this chapter will not only seek to understand academic identity as a phenomenon but it will also explore the ways in which individuals interact with each other in a social setting as they construct their identities (King & Billot, 2016:158).
Academic Identities as ‘Hybrids’
Developing an identity is an ever-lasting human quest (Badley, 2016:377); thus identity is a dynamic construct which is continually formed and reformed (Lieff et al. 2012:208). There is an emergent consensus in sociology that identity refers to the meanings that individuals attach reflexively to themselves; these meanings are developed and sustained by individuals through processes of social interaction as they seek to address the question ‘who am I?’ (Brown, 2014:23). For example, Badley (2016:377) states that academics often worry about the identities which they compose for their many selves such as ‘what kind of researcher should I be?’ or ‘what research club shall I join?’ As such academics are not merely passive recipients of identities provided to them by social entities; rather, they are capable of recognising the identity implications and demands of organisations, groups and other social entities. Thus, they can respond to identity pressures as well as proactively initiate identity dynamics (Kreiner et al., 2006:1333).
Similar to identity, academic identity lacks exactness in terms of description, thus it cannot be summed up in a few sentences. Even so, the literature reveals two main ways of viewing academic identity; firstly, as a source of ‘meaning’ for academics and, secondly as ‘identification’ with the university or profession. Researchers, such as Feather (2010:189), who subscribe to the former, view academic identity as a representation of an individual’s inner being, his or her values, beliefs and attitudes. Thus academic identities are a manifestation of numerous complex experiences and representations of a culture or defining communities that a person is based in (2010:189). Vandeyar (2010:916) concurs, stating that academic identities are interwoven into the essence of being for the academic since they reflect the life histories and encompass individual values and commitments. Thus academic identities, as meaning, represent symbolic identification of the purpose of academics’ actions at work (Lea & Stierer, 2011:610).
Conversely, those researchers such as Winter (2009:122) who view academic identity as identification, argue that academic identity is the extent to which academics define themselves primarily in terms of the university (institutionally) or as members of a profession. King and Billot (2016:158) also add that academic identities derive from one’s institution, discipline and personal interpretations of what an academic should be like, while Musolf (2003:8) states that academic identities develop from the set of meanings that define academics in terms of their roles, statuses, membership in disciplinary communities and the characteristics that make them unique individuals. Harris (2005) and Clarke et al. (2013:7) view academics as teachers, scholars, and specialists in HE; therefore, they view academic identities as a trinity of research, teaching and scholarly activities that are subject or discipline-based.
Even so, there are some researchers who view academic identities as the sum of meanings and identification with the university or profession. That is, they argue that academic identities only become such once they have been internalised and meanings constructed around their internalisation. However, they contend that identities are stronger sources of meaning than work roles because of the process of self-construction and individuation that they provide. Thus while work roles organise functions, while identities organise meanings (Lea & Stierer, 2011:610). For example, Van Winkel, Van der Rijst, Poell Driel (2017:2) state that in HE academic roles are associated with two distinctive responsibilities; research and teaching. These create ‘a working understanding of academic’ derived from four forms of scholarship: (1) discovery (research), (2) integration (multi-disciplinary research), (3) application (valorization) and (4) teaching (based in disciplinary developments). From this, they define academics as those who are employed in HE, “related to one or more of those forms of scholarship” (Van Winkel et al., 2017:2).
This view exemplifies the perception of academic identities as pertaining to the particular ‘situation’ that academics work in; therefore academic identities as situated and descriptive of who academics are in relation to others in the situation (Delamater et al. 2015:148). Consequently they are not a fixed property, but are part of the “lived complexity of a person’s project and their ways of being in those sites which are constituted as being part of the academic” (Clegg, 2008:329). For this study, the above-mentioned definitions of academic identity specify its different aspects or origins. However, it is clear from the above definitions that many authors find it difficult to define academic identities (Van Winkel et al., 2017:2; Feather, 2010:190).
Even so, three things are clear about the definitions of academic identity; (1) it is an attempt to make sense of ‘who’ one is by the way he or she lives his or her daily work life (King & Billot, 2015:834; Wenger, 1998:149); (2) it is influenced by factors within personal, relational and contextual domains (Lieff et al. 2012:208); (3) it is the negotiation of the tension between the structure, communities and the academic’s own position (Kreiner et al. 2006:1033; Bamberg, 2010:4; Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010:135; Brown, 2014:23; McAlpine et al., 2014:954). Research supports the above-mentioned views. For example, Vandeyar (2010) found that academics are likely to develop multiple academic identities, comprising personal attributes, membership in social groups and various work roles. Thus it is clear from the above definitions that academics are the producers and product, influencers and the influenced of their identities.
It is for this reason that Quigley (2011:21) opines that any conceptualisation of academic identity should seek to unravel notions of academic ontology and epistemology or how academics come to be and how they come to know that they are academics. Sociologically, critical realism states that epistemologies depict self-knowledge, based on experience and not on surface appearances. Conversely, ontologies depict reality or how things come to exist. As such, individuals have innate capacities to (re)act in certain way and to be both an influence and an influencer in social situations which further influence how they understand themselves (Jackson & Hogg, 2010:152-153). For example, research by Hallett (2010) found that teaching professionals in educational institutions experienced an epistemic identity crisis (displacement of meaning, certainty and expectations) when institutional myths and organisational practices like accountability (macro) and autonomy (micro) that were once loosely connected became tightly linked in their work. Academic identities as epistemologies, therefore, refer to the fact that only academics have the experiential knowledge of what being an academic feels like while as an ontology, their identities depict the dual influence of the structure (social relations within the university) and agency (the individual freedom to choose). The interactionist perspective has also shown that individuals continually construct their identities depending on the situation and relations that they participate in. Hence, people construct identities to sustain that sense of meaningfulness (Demerath, 2006:492).
From the point of view of this study, academic identities are academics’ subjectively construed understandings of who they are (Brown, 2014:21). As such, only academics who experience work in their respective universities know what working in those universities really ‘feels’ like while those who are not can only opinionate what things are like (Mills & Gitlin, 2000:3-4). It is not surprising then that Quigley states that academic identities are not only complex but they are also composed of various competing influences which make them difficult to define so that they may best be conceptualised as ‘shifting targets which differ for each individual academic’ (2011:21).
The notion of academic identities as ‘hybrids,’ therefore, reflects the various perceptions and conceptualisations of academic identities. It also resonate Wenger’s (1998) concept of identity as nexus of multimembership; that is, identity derives from negotiating meanings of experience of membership in social communities. Hence an identity connects the ‘social’ and the ‘individual’ so that each can be referred to the other (Wenger, 1998:145). For Wenger this essentially involves constructing identities derived from the different meanings of multimembership into one nexus (1998, 159-160) or constructing different aspects of themselves such that they are simultaneously one and multiple.
Although it has been established that it is difficult to ascertain what academic identity means, the above discussion offers possible ways of understanding it.
Constituencies of academic identities
Universities are complex and distinct organisations where different constructions of ‘academic’ coexist (Fitzmaurice, 2013:613). CoP are critical in this regard for it is here that people who share a passion or concern for something, interact regularly and learn how to do their craft better (Wenger & Wenger-Trayner, 2015:1). Thus CoP within HE are the chief sources of identity and skills for academics; they house assumptions about what is to be learned, task performance, patterns of publication, professional interaction as well as social and political status (Becher, 1989 cited in Clarke et al., 2013:7; Clarke, Kenny & Loxley, 2015:23). Vandeyar (2010:916) also adds that the university (as an all-encompassing body) also houses different communities. It is these communities which influence the make-up of academic identities (Vandeyar, 2010:915). Contained in the definition of communities within the university are the notions of relationships, environment, expectations and responsibilities (Jongbloed, Enders & Salerno, 2008:305). Further, within the university, there are two types of communities that directly influence the construction of academic identities; the internal academic community and the external academic community (Vandeyar, 2010:916). According to Kreiner et al. (2006:1333) this implies that academic identities are ‘constructed and negotiated at the interface of individual and organisational identities’. Thus, as individuals engage aspects of their identity in interactions and situations, their personal and organisational boundaries are always subject to re-negotiation (Hollensbe et al. 2006:1331).
ABSTRACT
DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DEDICATION
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE PERSPECTIVES ON ACADEMIC IDENTITIES AT NUL
1.1 Background to the study
1.2 Problem statement
1.3 Rationale for the study
1.4 Theoretical overview
1.5 Methodological approach
1.6 Ethical considerations
1.7 Outline of the chapters
1.8 Chapter Summary
CHAPTER TWO THEORISING IDENTITIES AT NUL: DESCRIPTIVE OR PRESCRIPTIVE?
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Conceptualising identities
2.3 Theorising Academic Identities: The Interactionist perspective
2.4 Chapter summary
CHAPTER THREE ACADEMIC IDENTITY: IDENTIFICATION WITH NUL OR THE PROFESSION?
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Academic Identities as ‘Hybrids’
3.3 Constituencies of academic identities
3.4 Factors influencing the construction of academic identities
3.5 The State of HE in Lesotho
3.6 Chapter summary
CHAPTER FOUR METHODOLOGY
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Methodological orientation
4.3 Participant selection
4.4 Narrative Interviews
4.5 Narrative analysis and interpretation
4.6 Issues of authenticity and trustworthiness
4.7 Ethical considerations
4.8 Limitations of the study
4.9 Chapter summary
CHAPTER FIVE FINDINGS: ‘WHO AM I?’ CHRONICLES OF WORKING AS AN ACADEMIC AT NUL
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Academic Identity as Lived Work Experiences
5.3 Chapter summary
CHAPTER SIX FINDINGS: ‘WHAT DO I DO?’ STORIES OF NEGOTIATING THE LINKS BETWEEN ACADEMIC IDENTITY, COMMUNAL EXPECTATIONS AND BEHAVIOUR AT NUL
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Academic Identity as Normative Community Membership
6.3 Chapter summary
CHAPTER SEVEN .FINDINGS: ‘WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?’ DESCRIPTIONS OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AMONG ACADEMICS AT NUL
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Academic Identity as Job Attitudes
7.3 Chapter summary
CHAPTER EIGHT FINDINGS: ‘DO I INTEND TO STAY?’ REFLECTIONS ON THE CONTINUITY OF ACADEMIC IDENTITIES AT NUL
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Academic Identity as Journeys of Self-discovery
8.3 Chapter summary
CHAPTER NINE CONCLUSIONS
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The construction of academic identities at NUL: The summary of findings
9.3 Model of Academic Identity Construction
9.4 Reflections
9.5 New Directions in the Sociology of Professions
9.6 Future research
9.7 Conclusions
REFERENCES
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NARRATIVES OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF ACADEMIC IDENTITIES WITHIN THE LESOTHO HIGHER EDUCATION MILIEU
