Educational Philosophy and Theory

Memory, meaning, and autoethnographic inquiry as epistemological sources: Sitting with the crisis of higher education

Academic work is often situated within discourses of struggle (Evans & Nixon, 2015) and crisis (Fleming, 2021; Kidd, 2021), in which academics are subjected to the strain of marketisation and increasing competitiveness in higher education (HE). In practice, this trend has resulted in increased pressure across teaching, learning, and research, negatively affecting nearly all domains of academic life, including one’s ability ‘to think critically and creatively’ (Berg & Seeber, 2016, p. 17), fundamental skills needed by academics to complete their work. Often situated as an epistemic injustice issue, whereby the dehumanisation of academics is highlighted (Dunne, 2023, p. 285), and the risk of burnout stemming ‘from the human need for meaning, the need for what we do to matter’ (Dunne & Kotsonis, 2023, p. 351) is a risk for many within the academy.

To counter the ‘culture of speed’ narrative (Kidd, 2021, p. 10) propagated by many higher education institutions (HEIs) and funding bodies, a counter-crisis movement has developed that seeks to reduce the pace of academic work and the associated ‘time-poor’ experience of many academics (Berg & Seeber, 2016; Kidd, 2021). However, this countermovement often remains shaped by crisis-oriented frameworks. This has resulted in crisis narratives commonly becoming the dominant way that academics conceptualise and understand their situatedness within HE. This conceptualisation and understanding of one’s positionality within HE has consequences for what counts as legitimate knowledge about academic life, an underexplored area of the crisis discourse.

The literature stemming from the HE crisis calls into question which kinds of knowledge about academic life are viewed as legitimate and therefore highlighted, and which are considered illegitimate and silenced. Current discourse pays less attention to positive, meaningful professional moments that can stand against or oppose the dominant crisis narratives. Approaching the crisis of HE through a reflective, affective, and humanistic lens can help shift the narrative, so that academics are no longer ‘in the crisis’ but rather exist with and alongside it. This is not to suggest that injustices within the institution should not be addressed; they must be, to ensure that the HEI and its academics flourish. Rather, by reconceptualising academics’ situatedness within HEIs, the injustices experienced can be understood differently: as something one experiences, not as something that has power over those who work within the system. It is a shift in power dynamics that offers an alternative way to understand academic situatedness and to address the epistemic injustice of knowledge about academic life, resisting the hopelessness and dehumanisation that often characterise crisis frameworks.

This special issue seeks to reenvision the current HE crisis, not as something that can be fought against, as is being done elsewhere, but rather as something academics can sit with, alongside, using their reflections on positive, affective experiences as an epistemological source for understanding academic life and practice. Rather than focusing on the areas of disaster and crisis within HE (Fleming, 2021; Kidd, 2021), here we wish to focus on academics being ‘together in place…[rethinking] not only where we are, but who we are with, and under what conditions we relate’ (Tesar, 2025, p. 797). The normative assumption is that memory and meaning are subjective experiences, but by employing emotional memories and meanings in the process of this rethinking, it can give ‘one an insight into the realm of existence beyond one’s lived experience’ (Guttesen, 2024, p. 923), giving philosophical weight to academics’ professional experiences.

This special issue employs the philosophical concepts of emotion, memory, and meaning as sources of epistemological importance. The role of emotions and affect in education has been recognised as philosophically important, often in discussions of teaching and learning in classrooms (Guttesen, 2024; Jackson, 2024). Here, we seek to extend this notion to academics and their work, recognising their emotions and memories as a legitimate form of educational epistemology. This philosophical inquiry will be conducted through autoethnographic narratives, joining philosophical inquiry with the lived experiences of academics. Autoethnography has proven a valid method for advancing this philosophy through lived-experience inquiry (Grant, 2024), particularly in the discipline of education (Furman & de Rezende Rocha, 2025).

Contributors to this special issue will use a memory of a meaningful professional moment as a starting point for philosophical inquiry and analysis. Each narrative should be situated within epistemological or philosophical discourse as the object being critically examined. Autoethnography, in this context, will be used as a philosophical tool in understanding academic life. For instance, a contributor may remember a lecturer-student interaction that was particularly meaningful, examine the emotions surrounding that interaction, and analyse how that moment can challenge crisis narratives by examining the relational dimension of care in academic work that is often omitted from productivity HE crisis discourse.

Thematic scope

This special issue marries philosophically grounded autoethnographic narratives and educational epistemological discourse, in which contributors recollect positive and meaningful professional moments as a legitimate source of epistemology for understanding academic life and work in HE. These narratives serve as a starting point for philosophical inquiry into the knowledge, values, and meaning in HE that go beyond current crisis discourse. Contributors are invited to submit manuscripts that question how emotion and memory can bring to light aspects of academic life that are often omitted in crisis-oriented discourse.

While individual contributions will be grounded in differing professional contexts and memories, submissions should engage with all or a selection of the following questions:

• What emotions are associated with the professional moment described, and how do they shape our understanding of academic work?
• What does the recalled moment suggest is valuable and meaningful in HE?
• How can recalling a positive or meaningful moment result in philosophical insight?
• How does remembering positive moments challenge crisis-oriented discourse?
• What forms of knowledge can be highlighted when positive academic experiences are remembered?

Together, the papers in this special issue focus on positive and meaningful memories that foreground forms of knowledge that are often underexamined and undertheorised in examinations of how academics understand and value their work.

References

Berg, M., & Seeber, B. K. (2016). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. University of Toronto Press.

Dunne, G. (2023). Epistemic injustice in education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 55(3), 285–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2139238

Dunne, G., & Kotsonis, A. (2023). Epistemic exploitation in education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 55(3), 343–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2094249

Evans, L. & Nixon, J. (2015). Academic identities in higher education: The changing European Landscape. Bloomsbury Academic.

Fleming, P. (2021). Dark academia: How universities die. Pluto Press.

Furman, C. E., & de Rezende Rocha, T. (Eds.). (2025). Teachers and philosophy: Essays on the contact zone. SUNY Press.

Guttesen, K. (2024). The philosophy of emotions: Implementing character education through poetry. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 56(9), 910–925. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2024.2332694

Grant, A (Ed.). (2024). Writing philosophical autoethnography. Routledge.

Jackson, L. (2024). Emotions: Philosophy of education in practice. Bloomsbury Academic.

Kidd, I. J. (2021). Corrupted temporalities, ‘cultures of speed’, and the possibility of collegiality. Educational Philosophy and Theory. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.2017883

Tesar, M. (2025). Being together in/with place: Reimagining educational philosophies and pedagogies in transformational times. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 57(9), 797–804. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2025.2511727