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


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Al Lily A. E., Foland J., Stoloff D., Gogus A., Erguvan I. D., Awshar M. T., ...More

INFORMATION DEVELOPMENT, vol.33, no.3, pp.270-288, 2017 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 33 Issue: 3
  • Publication Date: 2017
  • Doi Number: 10.1177/0266666916646415
  • Journal Name: INFORMATION DEVELOPMENT
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.270-288
  • Keywords: education, technology, academia, power, organizational politics, academic domain, crowd-authoring, PUBLISH, ICT
  • Anadolu University Affiliated: Yes

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.