Catalytic power of a pandemic: on enacting agency in professional higher education spaces through communities of practice
Date
2022
Authors
De Klerk, Danie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
HELTASA (Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa)
Abstract
This chapter critically interrogates the agential metamorphosis the
author experienced over an 18-month period during the Covid-19
pandemic, by means of numerous diverse communities of practice
(CoPs). As a mid-career academic occupying a middle-management
leadership position in a faculty, at a large, research-intensive public
university in South Africa, the author first outlines the numerous
professional tensions that characterise the dual roles he holds in the
faculty. Underpinned by Social Realist principles and Archer’s (1995,
2000, 2005) notions about morphogenesis, the chapter explores the
temporal interplay between structures (in the form of CoPs) and agency
(in the form of the author’s agential metamorphosis). The chapter
postulates that the Covid-19 pandemic served as a catalyst in this
interplay, according the author unique opportunities to become part of
numerous diverse CoPs that evolved organically during this time.
Synergistic with this evolution, was that of the author’s awareness of
his own agential potential and the intentionality with which he came to
enact agency in the professional spaces he occupies. By linking the
CoPs to four professional meta-identities, the chapter allows for critical
reflections on how each CoP contributed in unique but interconnected
ways to the author’s agential metamorphosis, catalysed by the
pandemic. The chapter concludes by making recommendations on how
higher education stakeholders can use CoPs and critical reflection
about agential potential as ways of eliciting and enacting agency in
their own professional spaces.
Description
Keywords
Agency, Community of practice, Critical reflection, Morphogenesis, Morphogenetic framework, Morphogenetic cycle, Social realism
Citation
de Klerk, D. (2022). Catalytic power of a pandemic: On enacting agency in professional higher education spaces through communities of practice. In R. Govender & A. H. M. Jacobs (Eds.) Critical Reflections on Professional Learning During Covid-19: Context, Practice and Change. HELTASA. 109-128. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7652567.