Writing for publication group: professional development situated in the interstices of academia and performativity

Abstract

This article features nine 'narratives of experience' illustrative of academics engaged in an alternative Professional Development (PD) activity, referred to as Writing for Publication, in a regional Australian university. Each narrative adopts a critical stance to academic practice situated in what Ball defines as a 'culture of performativity' perpetuated by a 'global neoliberal environment'. Contrary to professional development built primarily around sporadic content-provision and credential-based activities, Writing for Publication represents an alternative approach to professional development, a loose-coupling model, that gives validation to academics engaged in navigating dominant neoliberal discourses driving higher education filtered through the interstices or sites for identity-creation, agency formation and emerging communities of practice.