This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
This dissertation research explores the complexity of transformations of academic lives and academic identities along the multiple, non-linear, conflicting, and paradoxical trajectories of the pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet times and spaces. Academic literature on the post-Soviet transformations of higher education has usually focused on structural reforms and policy changes, as…
This dissertation research explores the complexity of transformations of academic lives and academic identities along the multiple, non-linear, conflicting, and paradoxical trajectories of the pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet times and spaces. Academic literature on the post-Soviet transformations of higher education has usually focused on structural reforms and policy changes, as well as their compatibility with the European and Western higher education policy agenda. Guided by the theoretical insights from the decolonial and post-Socialist transformation studies, this dissertation research intends to decenter the education policies and reforms from being a focal point of analysis; instead, it spotlights the transformation of Georgian academics through their memories, lived experiences, and imaginations about the future. The study offers insights into personal and collective experiences of being and becoming an academic in the process of navigating the evolving historical, political, cultural, and institutional contexts at three public universities in Georgia. Drawing on the narrative-ethnographic methodology, this study explores the complicated scenes and nuances of Georgian academic space by portraying how academics construct, reconstruct, adjust, resist, negotiate, and reinvent their academic selves during the post-Soviet transformations. Diffractive analysis of the narratives and ethnographic observations illustrates multiple intra-actions of academic identities through various temporal and spatial reconfigurations, revealing that the Soviet past is not left behind, and the European future is not that certain. Instead, the liminal academic space is haunted by the (re)awakened pasts and (re)imagined futures, and their inseparability enacts various co-existing scenarios of defuturing and refuturing of academic identities.
