THE ROLE OF RADICAL REFLEXIVITY IN ACADEMICS’ MEANING-MAKING OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT

This chapter explores the role of “radical reflexivity” in the way academics make meaning of their career development (CD) choices and prospects within the contested power relationships of higher education (HE). The wider pervading managerialist academic landscape provides the context within which our research is embedded and labour process theory (LPT) is drawn on as an underpinning theoretical framework, and this is discussed in the next section. The chapter moves on to outline academic perspectives on reflexivity and radical reflexivity, and to consider the relevance of these in the development and management of academic careers. We (the authors) have made reference to our previous research relating to academics within the UK “new university” (also referred to as “post-’92 university”) environment. We have also included our personal reflections of being academics based in a UK new university as a means of introducing our own reflexivity and radical reflexivity within this context. We argue this demonstrates some form of “double hermeneutic”, or our “interpretation of the experience of both the participant and the researcher” (Leary et al. 2010, 58), and acknowledgement of our identification with the focus of our research. Cunliffe (2003, 983) proposes that rad