Mobile academics Down Under: the ecologies of practice, fraternal itineraries and professional identities of three Australian university lecturers

Abstract

The final part of the book is devoted to staff mobility, another theme which is under-explored in the literature. The first chapter is autoethnographic and presents the professional odysseys of three Australian academics who are brothers. Patrick Danaher, Mike Danaher and Geoff Danaher reflect on their respective and shared experiences of academic mobility. The chapter is framed and informed by the concept of ‘ecologies of practice’, which highlights the commonalities and divergences evident among system and institution-level policies, campus and faculty practices and academics’ own subjectivities. They point out how the ways in which student mobility are perceived differ from views on staff mobility, not least because the former are seen as ‘customers’ whereas the latter are ‘labour’. The implications of the Danaher analysis include the need to pay more attention to mobility within an education system.