Instability absorption by tertiary educators: Technology adoption under conditions of fragility in the Liberian higher education sector

Abstract

Digital transformation in higher education is frequently framed in terms of access and adoption. Such framings generally failed to consider how digital higher education systems function under conditions of persistent infrastructural instability and constrained institutional capacity. This study examines Liberian educators’ experiences of digital provision under conditions of fragility in the country’s higher education sector. Based on data from interviews and a survey with 22 educators across 11 Liberian tertiary institutions, the research found that continuity is sustained to a great extent not through the provision of technological systems and user acceptance of those systems, but rather through educators’ adaptations to the unstable state of the technological infrastructure. The educators’ responses fall into four main instability absorption categories—responsibility displacement; non-institutional and informal communication infrastructures; communicative labour; and uneven digital labour—and the study proposes the instability absorption model (IAM) to explain how these absorption practices sustain digital education delivery. The model frames technology adoption under conditions of fragility as a process of sustained operationalisation, where systems continue functioning through continuous human absorption of infrastructure disruption.