The Presentation of Academic Identity at a Papua New Guinean University: Agency and Liminality in Postcolonial Higher Education

Abstract

Awareness of one’s academic identity, and the confidence to actively shape this identity, are pivotal in navigating careers in higher education. In this Discussion Paper, we explore the struggles of presenting and communicating an academic identity for lecturers in a young faith-based university in Papua New Guinea (PNG). In doing so, we aim to showcase the voice of academics who are under-represented in traditional accounts of academic identity, which mostly have focused on academics in developed nations of the Global North and an implied universalisation of academic identity. We argue that the formation of academic identities among Papua New Guineans may be hindered as much as it is helped by unrealistic expectations to conduct research (Breier et al. 2020; Chipindi and Vavrus 2018; Yang et al. 2021). More generally, this paper reinforces a need for government and institutional policies to support academic identities that are proudly ‘place-based’ (Nordbäck et al. 2022), and responsive to local contexts and needs, while acknowledging international conventions of academia.