Academic domains as political battlegrounds: A global enquiry by 99 academics in the fields of education and technology

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Date

2017

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Sage Publications Ltd

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Abstract

This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars' reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human constituents of an academic realm, with the two shaping one another. One implication of this proposition is that these non-human elements exist as political actors', just like their human counterparts, having agency' - which they exercise over humans. This turns academic domains into political (functional or dysfunctional) battlefields' wherein both humans and non-humans engage in political activities and actions that form the identity of the academic domain. For more information about the authorship approach, please see Al Lily AEA (2015) A crowd-authoring project on the scholarship of educational technology. Information Development. doi: 10.1177/0266666915622044.

Description

Pedro, Luís/0000-0003-1763-8433; GOGUS, AYTAC/0000-0001-8215-3294; Henderson, J. Bryan/0000-0001-6175-0794; Vlachopoulos, Dimitrios/0000-0002-2033-7343; Mazzoni, Elvis/0000-0002-7258-5381; Al-Saggaf, Yeslam/0000-0001-7299-5578; Elci, Alev/0000-0002-9243-2104; Simsek, Ali/0000-0002-0960-6805; Player-koro, Catarina/0000-0003-4178-4609; Reiners, Torsten/0000-0001-6243-4267; Birzina, Rita/0000-0002-6124-1073; de Freitas Gonçalves Moreira, António Augusto/0000-0003-0040-2811; lucas, margarida/0000-0002-7438-5287; Venter, Isabella Margarethe/0000-0001-6554-8024; Dumbraveanu, Roza/0000-0003-2232-3620; Al Lily, Abdulrahman Essa/0000-0002-5116-422X; Adedokun-Shittu, Nafisat/0000-0003-1561-7508; Farley, Helen Sara/0000-0002-9511-4910; Khoo, Elaine/0000-0002-4260-4553; Naaji, Antoanela/0000-0002-7298-5107; Schrader, P. G./0000-0002-4234-5133; Schön, Sandra/0000-0003-0267-5215; Joy, Mike/0000-0001-9826-5928; Itmazi, Jamil/0000-0002-4206-7989; Romero, Margarida/0000-0003-3356-8121; BARDAKCI, Salih/0000-0003-1163-2794; Mohamad Said, Mohd Nihra Haruzuan/0000-0001-9103-9530; Santally, Mohammad Issack/0000-0003-3745-2150; Jwaifell, Mustafa/0000-0002-7279-7253; BUARKI, HANADI/0000-0003-3594-7432; Erguvan, Inan Deniz/0000-0001-8713-2935; Pombo, Lucia/0000-0001-5085-3974; Foland, Jed/0000-0001-8336-0674; Malmi, Lauri/0000-0003-1064-796X; Gregory, Sue/0000-0002-0417-8266; Lee, Hwansoo/0000-0002-9897-9522; SEFEROGLU, Suleyman Sadi/0000-0002-5010-484X; Kinley, Khamsum/0000-0003-1308-8219; Badosek, Radim/0000-0002-7786-8436; Sanga, Camilius. A./0000-0002-8759-431X; White, Julie/0000-0001-7468-4650; Oliver, Kevin/0000-0001-8463-0621; Tondeur, Jo/0000-0002-3807-5361; Kalz, Marco/0000-0003-1471-5827; Ebner, Martin/0000-0001-5789-5296; Coto, Mayela/0000-0002-4558-3671; Oni, Aderonke A./0000-0002-8625-2748; Hakkinen, Paivi/0000-0001-6616-9114

Keywords

education, technology, academia, power, organizational politics, academic domain, crowd-authoring

Turkish CoHE Thesis Center URL

Citation

5

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Volume

33

Issue

3

Start Page

270

End Page

288