ABSTRACT
Looking through the lenses of classical colonial theories, Poland seems to be a country that does not need a decolonial framework. In fact, the historical feudal structures have been embedded in many professional settings. This chapter presents the case of Polish higher education institutions and the asymmetrical relations between two groups of employees: academics (faculty members) and the administrative staff, who are defined by the law as “those who are not academics.” Our narrative is a symmetrical three-voice: one researcher is an administrative staff member and the other two are faculty members who teach and conduct research. To explore the attitudes, beliefs and motivations of both groups, as well as associations triggered by the organisation, a semi-structured projective technique within a survey based on a sentence completion test is used. Through a set of associations related to the workplace and relations between these two groups of employees, we deconstruct the existing asymmetries in mutual perceptions and the individual attitudes towards these asymmetries. The qualitative analysis leads us to conclusions describing the power relations in Polish academia and the possible implications for the decolonisation of the non-academics within the higher education institutions.
