Beyond Practice & Back Again

This chapter is part of the book ‘Beyond Borders? Articulations, provocations and performativities in Arts & Humanities’. Edited by of Dr Hassan Hussain, Dr Jacqueline Taylor and Emily Bettison of Birmingham City University, this collection brings together critical articulations that explore the spaces, places and territories that exist above and below, amidst and with/out borders in Arts &Humanities research.

Beyond Practice & Back Again contextualises Lorraine Smith’s experiences as a dance artist - turned full-time lecturer and early career researcher through the frames of the 21^st century university, social and professional identity construction and performativity to give an honest and in-depth look into the trials and tribulations of an artist trying to define, redefine and preserve their identity in the world of academia, offering advice on how, with some careful navigating, you can return to practice in a much more meaningful way.

This work interrogates the current landscape of the university (Barnett 1990; Ball 2003; Harris 2005; Ozga 1998), including the rise of institutional performativity, and its impact on the artist academic through case studies including Ashforth et al.(2008), Brew et al. (2018) Degn (2018), Hennekam (2017), etc. In particular,impact on identity formation and preservation are examined through the theories of Judith Butler, Erving Goffman and Steph Lawler, among others.

The Beyond Borders book will form an innovative transdisciplinary, cross-cultural and experimental textual space that traverses (creative) research disciplines to reflect individual research approaches, methodologies, ways of articulation and more. This publication seeks to make visible and reflect on the pathways, roots and routes vital to undertaking Arts and Humanities research. In doing so, it aims to explore the boundaries – of writing, the printed text and academia – by bringing to the fore the many articulations, provocations and performativities that underpin Arts & Humanities research.