Academic identities re-formed? Contesting technological determinism in accounts of the digital age

Abstract

This paper will deconstruct ideas of the ‘digital age’ and ‘information society’ by exploring how digital technologies are invoked in accounts of changing academic identities. It argues that policy, and academic, narratives about the impact of digital technologies have been marred by a strand of technological determinism. Drawing on the work of Barbara Adam the paper will contest linear accounts of the experiences of time assumed in theories of space–time compression and suggest that attention needs to be given to the times of the body and the experiential which co-exist and interpolate the speeded up times of digital technologies. The paper explores the ways academic identities are being re-made, but also continuing commitments to the idea of an intellectual self. It argues that mundane technologies such as email are multiple in their effects, disrupting aspects of identity and exerting increased managerial surveillance, while simultaneously (in the same in-box) providing solace, research ideas, friendship and politics. The conclusions are more a sketch of a research agenda since there is remarkably little empirical research on academic identities and technology.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Professors Valerie Hey and Louise Morley who suggested the topic to me as part of their ESRC Seminar Series. I would not have written the paper without them. Thanks also to the anonymous referee for invaluable feedback.