Just because you are staying does not mean you are 'stuck

Conceptualisations of Academic Mobility for Precarious Academics

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2935656
AutoresKathleen Smithers (0000-0001-7301-5658, Charles Sturt University, autor correspondente), Sarah Gurr (0000-0001-5154-249X, Charles Sturt University), Nerida Spina (0000-0002-2923-0104, Queensland University of Technology), Jessica Harris (0000-0003-4584-6993, Newcastle University), Troy Heffernan (0000-0002-8156-622X, University of Oxford)
Ano2025
Volume47
Fascículo1
Páginas1-14
Data de publicação2025-03-25
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoDiscourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0159-6306 • E-ISSN: 1469-3739
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01596306.2025.2483193
OpenAlexW4408913668
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas31

Discourses of the ‘wandering scholar’ privilege the notion of academic mobility, with career benefits for those who are mobile. Universities employ ever-increasing numbers of people on short term contracts, and it is important to consider how precarity influences an individual’s im/mobility. Drawing on interviews with precariously employed academics, we highlight how the concept of mobility privileges those without the ‘stickiness’ of affective ties. These ties might include family, medical care needs, preferences for location, and institutional connections. We argue that precarious academics experience a range of ties that may ‘stick’ them to a place, through choice or circumstance. For some, there may be an active decision to stay rather than a passive experience of becoming stuck in place by forces beyond their control. To appreciate the difference in experiences of agency in academic mobility, we provide a conceptualisation of ‘immobility’ that recognises that not everyone who stays is necessarily ‘stuck’

Media studies · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Higher Education Governance and Development