Academic identity: A franchise under construction
Abstract
The role higher education plays in the development of society has become particularly relevant with regard to citizens’ expectations of justice and the common good. However, the way in which these institutions promote the creation of new models is paradoxical given the consolidation of an academic capitalism model in the higher education industry since the second half of the twentieth century, whose impact remains an open debate. Based on interviews with academics, this article examines how fragmented and conflicting identities are being constructed. Their accounts reveal how they emerge and re-signify their position by appropriating this model, but interpreting what it means to be an academic. Four repertoires articulate an identity based on rationalities that shape and organize them into a performativity that alienates and eventually uproots them, thus transforming the academics into passive reproducers of management-based models. It is imperative that the academic debate address how this new way of doing higher education promotes a social fabric where notions of performance and self-management permeate the mindset of future professionals, thus strengthening individualistic models of society that threaten the well-being of its members.Keywords
performativity, academic identity, Chilean universities, narratives, academic ethosReferences
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