ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the interplay between strategies deployed by academic staff to resist efforts at change and the counteractions of the participants. The chapter argues that given the intellectual nature of the academic field, actors need to be strategically competent to ensure either reproduction or transformation. First, the chapter discusses some of the ways in which transformation is resisted and reproduced within the academic field. It then discusses how agents of change within such spaces counteract such resistance and its implications for agency. I argue that the individual’s ability to critically engage with their context, realise the need for change and counteract resistance and actions aimed at maintaining things the way they are, reflect the reflexivity of participants. The chapter hence argues for reflexivity as central to being an agent of change.
