THE NEW NORMAL: NOMADIC IDENTITIES AND THE FUTURE OF DOCTORAL SUPERVISION

Maritz, J Prinsloo, P

Overview

• Current discourses regarding the role and identity of supervisors

• Methodology

• Findings

• Discussion

Current discourses regarding the role and identity of supervisors

Current changing and fluid economic, technological and geopolitical changes in higher education call into question many of our previous assumptions about supervision and supervisor identities While supervision was seen in the past as mainly an intellectual and social enterprise, the fluid higher education landscape increasingly impacts on supervisor identities, roles and the way our outputs and efficiencies are evaluated and managed

The current dominant discourse in higher education is based on narratives of neoliberalism and academic capitalism, governmentality and managerialism, and higher education as corporation

As such postgraduate students become customers and consumers and supervisors are almost solely held responsible for the increasingly dire retention and completion rates of students

Alternative narratives

While the corporatisation of higher education as neoliberal meta-narrative is possibly the most dominant current discourse

We propose nomadic identity as a description of the changing identities of supervisors as a valuable counter-narrative

Nomadism as counter-narrative embraces the fact that the field (in the Bourdieusian sense) of postgraduate supervision is a battlefield in which our identities as supervisors are and will be shaped, often in ways beyond our control

This has implications for doctoral supervision

MethodologyReflective letter writing is a provocative form of collaborative autoethnography

This account is a co-created autoethnographic narrative whereby we wrote our reflections around an epiphany or experience and then shared and reacted to the story written by the other (Toyosaki & Pensoneau, 2005)

The aim was less of a “confessional” and more of a way of delivering insights by transcending metarules of scholarly discourse

This expose is both research and me-search (Nash & Bradley, 2011)

Lens: Bourdieu on Capital

FindingsSpaces of becoming- the nomad

“Our experience of being nomad only makes sense as metaphor or construct if one considers our professional journeys and pursuits”

Paul was appointed as research professor at the age of 54 and started to supervise his first doctoral student (as a sole supervisor)

Jeanette was appointed as an associate professor (her first permanent position in higher education) at the age of 49 and started supervising her first doctoral students (eight in total as well as eight master’s students) as sole supervisor

We both had alternative academic career trajectories which later had a definitive influence on personal, career and supervision perceptions. Both shared a feeling of coming to academia and doctoral education by ‘late’ and by ‘chance’.

Our survival‘Our survival depended on the value of the wares on our wagon …

and who is allowed to pass through the city gates after paying tolls…

and knowing that the tastes, needs and fashions of the city,…

which in turn will determined the value of our wares’

The field (in the Bourdieusian sense) is a battlefield in which our identities as supervisors were and will continue to be shaped

As nomads we had a deficit of capital which could have direct implications for doctoral supervisors, the assumption being that a deficit in the supervisor may become a deficit for the doctoral candidate

New normal?

Our alternative career trajectories places us on a contrasting path of thoseentering academia via the pipeline approach

Bourdieu and Capital

Bourdieu (1986) argues that in as much as economists deserve the credit for explicitly raising the question of the relationship between the rates of profit on educational and economic investment, they fail to take a systematic account of the structure of the different ways of producing profit or in this case academic capital In the context of being and becoming a doctoral supervisor, academic capital is one of the major factors contributing to the academic’s career advancement, role and identity formation and quality doctoral supervision

Three types of capital: academic, cultural, socialThree types of academic capital: publications, teaching and networking

Implications of our nomadic identity- Bourdieusian framework

Social capital (networking)

A network is the sum total of all your contacts in academia Social capital is not gained through a “once off” event

It is an endless effort requiring time and effort, therefore directly or indirectly involving economic capital Social network ties provide access to valuable resources such as specialised knowledge, political power

It would therefore be critical for novice/doctoral supervisors to start actively engaging in building social capital, early in their academic careers

Gender and race

Women continue to be underrepresented among faculty and university administrations and academia are by and large still (white) male dominated

As such, female supervisors may be discriminated against, stereotyped or marginalised

The primary function of social capital is to enable an individual to gain access to human and other forms of capital as well as their embedded resources

Practices such as discrimination and inequality may hamper attempts of female supervisors or other minority groups to gain social capital

Age

First generation academics/supervisors are at a disadvantage in terms of symbolic capital

Being an older academic/supervisor limits the time biologically available for building capital Multiple demands such as lecturing, research, administration and community service) limit free time available for building or maximising cultural and social capital, as well as the capacity to satisfy specific demands of a prolonged process of acquisition

Values, beliefs and experiences

A person’s individual and collective history is a key aspect of habitus

We bring our past into our present when we enter any field

Although habitus is the product of childhood and life experiences, especially socialisation, it is continuously restructured as we engage and encounter the world

Supervisors’ own experiences play a crucial role in their understanding of the supervision relationship and possibly explain the disjuncture between the increasing professional pressures and discourses of performativity and supervisors’ own sense of self

Linguistic abilitiesWithout the necessary linguistic capital, performance becomes more difficult, especially when this becomes the code in which performance is evaluated (for example publishing and student throughput)

Most studies on cultural capital exclude data on linguistic abilities

From an ‘information-processing view’, participation in (cultural) activities leads to the development of knowledge or skills, which may in turn lead to success

Being able to communicate in ways appropriate to the academic or supervisory field is a critical factor for success

There might not be any direct capital benefit or debt incurred, but linguistic ability remains a commodity for exchange

Conclusion

For the nomad or novice supervisor a broader conception of a supervisor’s journey and learning may create a greater awareness of the “game” at stake, negating viable pathways to capital in order to meet individual needs and career trajectories By learning through awareness one also learns to manage oneself

We therefore need to make explicit the formative learning and knowledge required in the identity formation and role of the supervisor in order to understand the implications for doctoral supervision

Our normal may become the new-normal as those entering supervision form outside the pipeline track becomes the new norm(al)

Publications

Maritz, J. E & Prinsloo, P. (2015). A Bourdieusian perspective on becoming and being a postgraduate supervisor: the role of capital. Higher Education Research and Development, Doi=10.1080/07294360.2015.1011085http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2015.1011085

Maritz, J. E & Prinsloo, P. (2015). Queering” and Querying Supervisor Identities in Postgraduate Education. Higher Education Research and Development. In Press

maritje@unisa.ac.zaprinsp@unisa.ac.za