Taking Stock of Identity During Change

This chapter directly confronts the instability of academic employment that is more common in the current neoliberal environment and considers how academics can best cope with changes that may be forced upon them. It draws upon borderland crossing theory, and on inspiration from medieval literature’s constructions of heroism and leadership as those aspirations might be applied to academic endurance. This is a chapter about recognising what survives, able to be adapted. It suggests how professional identity and integrity might be held intact when subjected to institutional change managers at work. The story in this chapter pays tribute to longitudinality, to death and to what we carry with us that we inherit from those who have gone before us.