Narratives of Academics’ Personal Journeys in Contested Spaces

Book excerpt: Narratives of Academics' Personal Journeys in Contested Spaces provides theoretically-informed personal narratives of 11 emerging and established leaders in learning and teaching in Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the USA. The academics' narratives focus on how the individuals have navigated to their current leadership role in learning and teaching whilst negotiating contested identities, such as gender, and physical and social marginalised spaces, such as interstitial (middle) leadership positions. These international narratives provide unique perspectives on the sense-making of academics as they reflect on their learning and teaching leadership journey and how these journeys are shaped by their contested identities and the marginalised spaces they inhabit. Often such identities and spaces are not recognised in higher education which may lead to even more isolating and challenging leadership journeys. The book contributes to our understanding of the subjective experiences that academics encounter in their leadership journeys. Further, the personal narratives included in the book capture how the contested identities and marginalised spaces influence the learning and teaching leadership practices in various educational, cultural and national contexts.