The logics of collegial practices: Australian and New Zealand/Aotearoa perspectives

Abstract

Despite decades of managerial university reforms, collegiality emerges as an idea that unites academics, and that both symbolises and legitimises the collective aspirations of the academy. Typically, collegiality is positioned as an unquestionably “good thing”—an unproblematic academic ideal or an academic structure—obscuring the contingency of social arrangements in universities. This paper investigates the plurality of collegial practices that unfold “on the ground” in the context of university reforms and the diversification of the academic workforce over recent decades. The paper presents a qualitative and exploratory study of collegial practices in seven contemporary Australian and New Zealand/Aotearoa universities, employing a social cartographic analysis. Eleven types of logics underpinning collegial practices are identified and described in detail, by drawing on examples of collegial practices offered by fifteen research participants. A reconfigured picture of academic relations is presented, revealing the range of collegial practices that tend to be subsumed under a generic notion of collegiality. The effects of different types of collegial practices are examined, contesting exclusionary collegial relations and highlighting practices that have the potential to produce a more inclusive and socially just academy.