Combining academia and activism - Introduction - Common obstacles and useful tools - Michael Flood, Brian Martin & Tanja Dreher

Oct 15, 2026

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Academics who engage in activism face persistent obstacles that affect security, career advancement, and scholarly standing. The document outlines common challenges such as threats and attacks, silencing tactics, disciplinary pressure, epistemological expectations, peer influence, and competing output demands. It presents a practical toolkit of strategies to mitigate these pressures and help maintain long-term commitment, with particular attention to early-career academics, while also mapping how universities can function as sites for social change.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

How academia can support activism

Obstacles faced by activist academics

Strategies for sustaining activism

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Combining academia and activism Common obstacles and useful tools Michael Flood, Brian Martin & Tanja Dreher University of Wollongong Academics who engage in activism face a series of challenges and obstacles, including attacks, threats to security and advancement, output expectations, disciplinary pressures, epistemological expectations and peer influences. Practical means – a toolkit of strategies – can be used to overcome or mitigate these obstacles. Introduction Academics can engage in and contribute to activism in various ways. Some are involved in action groups on issues such as climate change and treatment of asylum seekers. Some undertake research and speak to the media about indigenous, environmental, gender and other issues. Others campaign on matters of concern within universities, including through unions and professional associations. Other possibilities include undertaking research that informs or supports activism, and advising and supporting activist students. These and other forms of academic activism can be risky. Academics who seek to combine activism with work in the university can be subject to threats, abuse, silencing tactics, and peer pressure and scholarly expectations to shift away from activism. In this paper we explore these obstacles with an emphasis on strategies for avoiding the pitfalls and maintaining commitment asan activist-oriented academic. Drawing on our diverse experiences of activism, academia and communityengaged research, we suggest possible responses to the many pressures on activist academic work, paying particular attention to the challenges faced by early career academics. Academia can be a site for activism in at least four ways (Downs & Manion,2004;Zerai,2002):(1) as a means to produce knowledge to inform progressive social change; (2) as a means for conducting research which itself involves social change; (3) as a site for progressive strategies of teaching and learning; and finally (4) as an institution whose power relations themselves maybe challenged and reconstructed. (See Ward (2007) for another framework of approaches to academia and activism, highlighting activist, participatory and policy geographies. These share an ideological commitment to social and personal change but differ in terms of whether they see themselves as working as, with, or for particular publics respectively.) We briefly review the nexus of academia and activism before offering strategies for combining them. First, academics may produce knowledge that, intentionally or not, informs progressive social change. Academic research may be taken up by activist and advocacy organisations for their own campaign work. Academics may contribute to policy debates and political change by participating in public debate or by direct submissions to policymakers. Second, academics’ conduct of research itself may involve social change.The term‘action research’describes a family of research methodologies that involve simulta- vol. 55, no. 1, 2013 Combining academia and activism, Michael Flood, Brian Martin & Tanja Dreher 17 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W neously pursuing social change (‘action’) and scholarly understanding (‘research’) . Action research typically is participatory, with all relevant parties in a particular community or organisation involved in examining current practice in order to change and improve it (Herr & Anderson, 2005; McIntyre, 2007; Smith,Willms & Johnson, 1997) . Thus, academics may conduct activism as academic work, validating (particular forms of) activism in the name of their intellectual value. Teaching and learning are the bread and butter of university business, and pedagogy – the practice and philosophy of teaching – itself is an important site of activism. Some teachers seek to use and rework teaching and learning practices in university classrooms to foster critical self-refl

FAQs

What kinds of obstacles do academics encounter when combining activism with their university work?

The text describes attacks and threats to security, silencing tactics, peer pressure, disciplinary pressures, epistemological expectations, and pressures related to output and advancement.

In what ways can universities serve as sites for activism?

Universities can support activism by producing knowledge that informs social change, conducting action-oriented research, advancing progressive teaching and learning, and challenging institutional power relations.

How can action research enable activism within academic work?

Action research is presented as participatory methodology that simultaneously pursues social change and scholarly understanding, involving relevant community or organizational parties in improving current practice.

Oct 15, 2026

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