Optimising the Potential of Third Space Professionals in Higher Education

This paper develops the concept of what Whitchurch has termed a “Third Space” between professional and academic spheres of activity in higher education. These are represented in the paper by three processes described as Contestation, Reconciliation and Reconstruction. Successful navigation of Third Space is likely to involve being able to work through challenges and tensions characteristic of Contestation; to build collaborative relationships via perceptions of added value, characteristic of Reconciliation; and to construct new forms of plural space during Reconstruction. The paper thereby offers a way of understanding increasingly complex working practices and an ongoing mutation of identities.

16.12.2010 | Celia Whitchurch (London)