ABSTRACT
In previous chapters we laid out our theoretical position, and captured some of the lived examples of academics dealing with the changing nature of academic work. In this final chapter we draw together our ideas, and provide vignettes, scenarios in which the phenomena we describe are played out day-to-day. These vignettes take the form of composite ‘scenes’ in which a recognisable and familiar embodiment of a practice is presented to illustrate the shifts in the priorities, decision-making, strategic thinking and tone behind what academics are now doing and why they are doing it. Of course we are not suggesting that all academics are thinking in the same way. Nonetheless academics are required to negotiate and respond to a range of features of the higher education landscape that they experience in common. The purpose of the vignettes – in some cases captures of real conversations – is to create resonance and recognition of these commonalities. They are not intended to be exhaustive but are intended to be evocative.
