Being critical: an account of an early career academic working within and against neoliberalism |
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Authors: | Fiona McLachlan |
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Institution: | 1. Institute of Sport, Exercise and Active Living and College of Sport and Exercise Science, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australiafiona.mclachlan@vu.edu.au |
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Abstract: | In 2014 I attended a symposium concerning Early Career Academics (ECAs) in the field of physical education and sport pedagogy. I was struck by the dominance of a particular theme at that symposium—that is, how to obtain a position and survive in academia. The aim of this paper is to use an inciting moment that occurred at this symposium as a means to confront some of the broader issues that I thought were at stake. Specifically I seek to interrogate the possible consequences of thinking about ECAs and academia in neoliberal terms, for the future of the field—a field that has a strong critical tradition. To this end I utilise autoethnographic techniques to connect the personal to the cultural and attempt to describe and analyse my story of becoming and being a critical scholar of sport, in a neoliberal context. |
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Keywords: | Neoliberalism Critical pedagogy Early career Academic identity Autoethnography |
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