Power, Knowledge and the Academy

This book provides a critical look at the elusive and blatant workings of power, and its creative as well as destructive consequences in a range of everyday sites in universities.

Power is everywhere. But what is it and how does it infuse personal and institutional relationships in higher education? Power, Knowledge and the Academy: The Institutional is Political takes a close-up and critical look at both the elusive and blatant workings and consequences of power in a range of everyday sites in universities. Chapters focus on specific locations in which power shapes personal and institutional knowledge including student-supervisor relationships, research teams, networking, the Research Assessment Exercise in the UK, and literature reviews.

VAL GILLIES is Senior Research Fellow in the Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group, London South Bank University, UK. Her most recent publication is Making Families: Moral Tales of Parenting and Step-Parenting (co-authored).
HELEN LUCEY is Lecturer in Social Psychology at the Open University, UK. She is co-author of Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class and Sibling Identity and Relationships: Sisters and Brothers.

Notes on Contributors * Introduction * Power and the Unconscious in Doctoral Student-Supervisor Relationships–H.Lucey & C.Rogers * Power and the PhD Journey: ‘Getting In’ and ‘Getting On’–K.Almack & H.Churchill * Ambivalent Positions: Ethnicity and Working in our ‘Own Communities’–K.Mand & S.Weller * Interweaving Academic and Professional Power in Higher Education–L.Bell & M.Birch * Power Relationships in Research Teams–M.Mauthner & L.Bell * Making the Right Connections: ‘Knowledge’ and Power in Academic Networking–V.Gillies & P.Aldred * Representing Academic Knowledge: Power and Responsibility in Reviewing the Literature–J.Ribbens Mccarthy * Measuring What’s Valued or Valuing What’s Measured? Knowledge Production and the Research Assessment Exercise–T.Miller & P.Aldred * Feminism, the Relational Micro-Politics of Power and Research Management in Higher Education in Britain–N.Mauthner & R.Edwards * Index