Academic Fragilities in a Marketised Age: The Case of Chile

Abstract

Academics are confronted with multiple and conflicting narratives as to what it is to be an academic. Their identities, however, are not entirely of their own making. Through a qualitative study, and deploying a social realist perspective, this paper analyses academic identities in Chile and attempts to locate the patterns of identity in the context of a marketised higher education system. The data were collected in both a state and a private university. The results suggest that distinct kinds of fragilities may be emerging among Chilean academics (ontological and contractual fragilities). These two fragilities can be traced to the attendant structures of the university system at an institutional level (reputational fragility in the public sector and a branding fragility in the private sector). The paper concludes by observing that, although the power of the structures is considerable, there are still spaces for agentic responses.

Keywords:

• academic identities
• marketised higher education system
• social realist perspective
• agentic responses

11. Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (Fondecyt) of Chile for financing this study. We also want to thank all the academics who participated in this research.