Practice architectures and being stirred into academic practices of a research group

Abstract

This chapter uses the theory of practice architectures to showhowparticular kinds of arrangements can make particular kinds of academic practices possible. It does this by exploring the authors’ experiences of being stirred in to practices of academia within a particular practice landscape as part of a research group, and the arrangements that enabled and constrained that stirring in. Employing an autoethnographic approach, the authors draw on their individual and collective experiences of research and collaboration with Stephen Kemmis and encounters with the theory of practice architectures. Individual narratives are analysed to identify key cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements that prefigured our being stirred in, a process which has led to deep and long-lasting research collaborations and commitments that have strong and enduring local and international ties. In sharing our analysis and narratives, we provide a glimpse of how these collaborations and commitments, and the theory of practice architectures (itself a prefiguring arrangement of our practices) have influenced our research into practice in our respective fields. Our discussion offers insights not only into the kinds of practice architectures that make up a university landscape, but also how conditions of possibility can be created for academic practices that resist the de-professionalising effects of troubling university conditions.