How to become an academic philosopheracademic discourse as a multileveled positioning practice

Abstract

In my contribution, I will present the power-knowledge approach to academic discourse. Drawing from poststructuralist and pragmatic developments in social theory, this model the practical challenge academic researchers have to meet in academic discourse: to secure a place in the social world of researchers. The researchers who participate in academic discourse typically need to straddle two types of positions: on the one hand they need to find their place among the many scientific communities, i.e. in the world of specialised knowledge. On the other hand, they need to be placed in a higher education institution with its status groups, hierarchies and bureaucratic rules, i.e. in the world of institutional power. If researchers want to occupy the most desirable positions in the academic field, they need to succeed in both worlds at the same time. While careers and strategies can differ widely between researchers, researchers engage in academic discourse as an ongoing, publication-based positioning practice in which symbolic positions need to be gradually turned into institutional positions.