Self-portrait with Mortar Board: A Study of Academic Identity Using the Map, the Novel and the Grid

This paper introduces the ‘map’, the ‘novel’ and the ‘grid’, three strategies inspired by the creative arts which potentially enrich higher education research by revealing layers of truth otherwise difficult to discern. The ‘map’ was inspired by the Map of an Englishman, an etching by Grayson Perry RA. It is used to create and analyse a visualisation of academic identity. The ‘novel’ depends upon finding an appropriate work of fiction to provide an analytical framework of metaphorical themes which help to draw out social and cultural issues. The ‘grid’ visually encodes the themes underlying large quantities of electronic communication to create a graphical précis of discourse at a chosen point in time. I demonstrate these strategies in an autoethnographic study of academic identity. My findings echo and enhance those of other studies into academic identity, suggesting the strategies could be helpful ways of seeing and understanding the research context. Publisher statement: This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the journal “Higher Education Research & Development” © 2013 Copyright Taylor & Francis; Higher Education Research & Development is available online at :- www.tandfonline.com and http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2012.751525