Navigating the third space: an analytic autoethnography of becoming a scholar-administrator in African higher education

Abstract

Academic careers seldom follow a single path, yet universities remain organised around a binary distinction between administrative and scholarly roles. This paper uses analytic autoethnography to trace my transition from university administrator to scholar-administrator at an African university, examining how personal agency and institutional structures together shaped that journey. Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1986) theory of field, habitus and capital and Whitchurch’s ‘third space’, I argue that the scholar-administrator occupies a peripheral space, holding a transitional position characterised by ongoing tension among competing professional identities, cultural expectations and reward systems. The narrative shows how rigid job classifications, gatekeeping mechanisms and misaligned incentives limit the adoption of hybrid roles. These findings highlight a need for universities, especially those in the global South where massification and resource constraints heighten such tensions, to recognise scholar-administrator roles through formal policies, flexible workload arrangements and enhanced mentoring for those following non-traditional academic paths.