Akademiska handlag

Abstract

This special issue looks at everyday life in Academia. While paradigm shifts, university management, research policies and other “big” issues often are discussed, the papers here explore a less analyzed field: the routines and micro-rituals of scholarly life that demand that you learn a special touch or academic savoir-faire. It can be about how people learn to structure a paper, to surf the internet, or how to organize material on the hard disk or maintain some kind of order in the office. How do you learn to participate in a seminar discussion, handle the rituals of academic gossiping or take critique? There are also the many skills of interacting with changing media and tools. When is the pencil preferred to the laptop and how do you use visual material in lectures? Many such methods have slowly become invisible over time, and are no longer seen as parts of the theoretical and methodological baggage scholars carry with them. The ways different generations of scholars acquire everyday working routines are often experienced as very personal – “my style of doing things” – but there are subtle cultural processes of learning involved here as the various papers demonstrate. So many academic skills, routines and rules are never found in research handbooks or statements of learning goals. It is acquired knowledge, resting more in the body than in the brain, working as reflexes rather than conscious actions. The fact that they are often seen as personal habits, or are just taken for granted and not problematized, also means that they may carry hidden charges of power and authority.