Abstract of Karin Tusting's talk:
Academic writing: methodological challenges of ethnographic research in university workplaces
This talk reflects on how the contemporary structural and contextual conditions of academia shape possibilities for ethnographic research on academic writing. I will explain the conditions of work in universities in the UK, particularly as these relate to managerialism and marketisation in Higher Education. The talk draws on an ESRC-funded research project, which was framed within literacy studies and sociomaterial theory and used ethnographically-influenced methods to research the writing practices of academic staff members in depth (Academics Writing, Tusting, McCulloch, Bhatt, Hamilton and Barton, Routledge, 2019). I will show how constraints on ethnographic research can be traced back to aspects of the workplace context, and open up discussion on the broader implications of this for research on academic writing.