ABSTRACT
This chapter is divided into three main sections. The first section focuses on the conceptual and theoretical framings underpinning this study as well as the analytical lens through which we examine our data: 15 pen-portraits and the first part of the in-depth, semi-structured interviews with colleagues involved in university language teaching across five languages (Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Spanish and French). These data are discussed through the Foucauldian-inspired framework for ongoing teacher ‘identity work’ developed by philosophy of education scholar Matthew Clarke. The four axes identified in this framework support the critical engagement with identity as an ethico-political exercise in self-formation involving the ‘care of the self’ along with the ‘care of others’. The second section of this chapter moves beyond ‘identity’ to consider individual ‘agency’ and agentive powers. Here we posit that the largely aspirational rhetoric underpinning the re-envisioning of language teachers’ roles, tasks and contributions, relies on the assumption that the agentic individual will act according to these re-envisioned goals. While situatedness is generally addressed, little attention is paid in the cited literature to ontological variables impacting on individual agency, for example, disciplinary and institutional tensions as well as the embodied, political, ethical, onto-epistemological and overall affective ‘labour’ involved in navigating the language and culture education (LCE) landscape. The third and final section in this chapter focuses on the exploration of these structural concerns on our colleagues’ lived experiences.
