Between Delivery and Luck: Projectification of Academic Careers and Conflicting Notions of Worth at the Postdoc Level

IF 3.2 2区 哲学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Minerva Pub Date : 2024-09-09 DOI:10.1007/s11024-024-09541-3
Jonatan Nästesjö
{"title":"Between Delivery and Luck: Projectification of Academic Careers and Conflicting Notions of Worth at the Postdoc Level","authors":"Jonatan Nästesjö","doi":"10.1007/s11024-024-09541-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates how early career academics interpret and respond to institutional demands structured by projectification. Developing a ‘frame analytic’ approach, it explores projectification as a process constituted at the level of meaning-making. Building on 35 in-depth interviews with fixed-term scholars in political science and history, the findings show that respondents jointly referred to <i>competition</i> and <i>delivery</i> in order to make sense of their current situation. Forming what I call <i>the project frame</i>, these interpretive orientations were legitimized by various organizational routines within the studied departments, feeding into a dominant regime of valuation and accumulation. However, while the content of the project frame is well-defined, attempts to align with it vary, indicating the importance of disciplines and academic age when navigating project-based careers. Furthermore, this way of framing academic work and careers provokes tensions and conflicts that junior scholars try to manage. To curb their competitive relationship and enable cooperation, respondents emphasized the outcome of project funding as ‘being lucky.’ They also drew on imagined futures to envision alternative scripts of success and worth. Both empirically and conceptually, the article contributes to an understanding of academic career-making as a kind of pragmatic problem-solving, centered on navigating multiple career pressures and individual aspirations.</p>","PeriodicalId":47427,"journal":{"name":"Minerva","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Minerva","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-024-09541-3","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper investigates how early career academics interpret and respond to institutional demands structured by projectification. Developing a ‘frame analytic’ approach, it explores projectification as a process constituted at the level of meaning-making. Building on 35 in-depth interviews with fixed-term scholars in political science and history, the findings show that respondents jointly referred to competition and delivery in order to make sense of their current situation. Forming what I call the project frame, these interpretive orientations were legitimized by various organizational routines within the studied departments, feeding into a dominant regime of valuation and accumulation. However, while the content of the project frame is well-defined, attempts to align with it vary, indicating the importance of disciplines and academic age when navigating project-based careers. Furthermore, this way of framing academic work and careers provokes tensions and conflicts that junior scholars try to manage. To curb their competitive relationship and enable cooperation, respondents emphasized the outcome of project funding as ‘being lucky.’ They also drew on imagined futures to envision alternative scripts of success and worth. Both empirically and conceptually, the article contributes to an understanding of academic career-making as a kind of pragmatic problem-solving, centered on navigating multiple career pressures and individual aspirations.

在交付与运气之间:学术职业的项目化与博士后级别的价值观念冲突
本文研究了职业生涯初期的学者如何解释和回应由项目化所构建的机构需求。本文采用 "框架分析 "方法,将项目化作为一个在意义生成层面上构成的过程进行探讨。在对政治学和历史学领域的定期学者进行的 35 次深入访谈的基础上,研究结果表明,受访者会共同提及竞争和交付,以理解他们当前的处境。这些解释性取向形成了我所说的项目框架,并通过所研究部门内的各种组织例行程序得到合法化,从而形成了一种占主导地位的评估和积累机制。然而,虽然项目框架的内容是明确界定的,但与之保持一致的尝试却各不相同,这表明在探索基于项目的职业生涯时,学科和学术年龄的重要性。此外,这种学术工作和职业生涯的构架方式引发了紧张和冲突,初级学者试图处理这些紧张和冲突。为了抑制竞争关系,促成合作,受访者强调项目资助的结果是'幸运'。他们还利用想象中的未来来设想成功和价值的替代脚本。无论是从经验还是从概念上,文章都有助于人们理解学术职业生涯是一种务实的问题解决方式,其核心是驾驭多重职业压力和个人抱负。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
Minerva
Minerva Multiple-
CiteScore
5.20
自引率
4.30%
发文量
26
期刊介绍: Minerva is devoted to the study of ideas, traditions, cultures and institutions in science, higher education and research. It is concerned no less with history than with present practice, and with the local as well as the global. It speaks to the scholar, the teacher, the policy-maker and the administrator. It features articles, essay reviews and ''special'' issues on themes of topical importance. It represents no single school of thought, but welcomes diversity, within the rules of rational discourse. Its contributions are peer-reviewed. Its audience is world-wide.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信