TY - CHAP
T1 - Human Capital as the Object of Doctoral Study and the Object of Desire
T2 - An Evocative Autoethnography
AU - Ali, M. Maksud
PY - 2025/10/9
Y1 - 2025/10/9
N2 - Employing an evocative autoethnography, in this chapter, I explore my doctoral journey and how this shaped my employability and academic career mobility. I reflect on my life story to unpack different journeys that led me to my doctoral study. This spatio-temporal perspective is critical in explicating my positionality, identity, as well as my academic career and social mobility. I unpack how I came to my doctoral study topic, i.e., human capital development, in the context of globalisation and in relation to my life story. I also highlight how human capital development became my object of desire through my doctoral study. My doctoral journey, therefore, was not just about researching human capital; it was also a journey of subjectivities, aspirations, and struggles for acquiring human capital and developing ‘employability habitus’ which, together with luck, eventually contributed to becoming an academic in the Global North. At the same time, it is also a journey of growing distance with my family and constant struggles over understanding of my being and becoming.
AB - Employing an evocative autoethnography, in this chapter, I explore my doctoral journey and how this shaped my employability and academic career mobility. I reflect on my life story to unpack different journeys that led me to my doctoral study. This spatio-temporal perspective is critical in explicating my positionality, identity, as well as my academic career and social mobility. I unpack how I came to my doctoral study topic, i.e., human capital development, in the context of globalisation and in relation to my life story. I also highlight how human capital development became my object of desire through my doctoral study. My doctoral journey, therefore, was not just about researching human capital; it was also a journey of subjectivities, aspirations, and struggles for acquiring human capital and developing ‘employability habitus’ which, together with luck, eventually contributed to becoming an academic in the Global North. At the same time, it is also a journey of growing distance with my family and constant struggles over understanding of my being and becoming.
KW - becoming an academic in the Global North
KW - employability
KW - evocative autoethnography
KW - globalisation
KW - human capital development
KW - mobilities
KW - social experiences and inequalities
KW - spatio-temporality
U2 - 10.1163/9789004746923_005
DO - 10.1163/9789004746923_005
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 9789004746909
T3 - The Doctoral Journey in Education
SP - 69
EP - 87
BT - Southern Perspectives
A2 - Allotta, Elizabeth
PB - Brill | Nijhoff
ER -