Discursive disruptions in the little boxes of academic work

The origins of academe and academic identity are steeped in history (Becher & Trowler, 2001). The disparate demands of twenty-first century tertiary education now imposed upon an academic range from teaching and learning (Vardi & Quin, 2010), professional and community engagement (Billot, 2010) and interdisciplinary research. Previously stable notions of academic identity (Churchman & King, 2009) are disrupted because the rules for inclusion (or exclusion) into these different disciplinary cultures are constantly changing and shifting (Hall & du Gay, 1996). Who now speaks for the academic as this work is disrupted through opposing discourses from both the origins of academe and those of a commoditized education marketplace? The origins of disciplinary borders are blurred as atomized boxes of knowledge no longer define academic identity. Using a self-reflexive lens, the authors adopt an autoethnographic methodology (Wall, 2008) to suggest that the identity of an academic is now so removed from its historical origins that the notion of being an academic and belonging to an academic community no long fits the little boxes to which they were consigned, and is more reflective of Appaduari’s (2010) global knowledge flows. The findings confirm that the little boxes of academic work are being disrupted through discursive constructions of engagement that are mobilizing a new framing of academic work.