“Frozen moments” in the digitisation of higher education teaching - self photography as a critical ethnographic approach to evaluate academic identities in a cross cultural setting

This study seeks to understand the role of self-photography in enabling academics to create self-narratives and use this to reflect on evolving academic identities in an increasingly digitized locus of teaching and learning. Using photographs taken by the participants of themselves in a context which they believe epitomizes their academic identity, we engaged in in-depth interviews to discuss what photographs mean in explaining work related roles. This paper explores lecturers’ narratives of change and fluid academic selves presented in discussion on the performance space of the online arena and the enabling power that self- photography can have in shaping in depth discussions. Participants from two HEIs (UK and Middle East based) were at different points on a digitization continuum, with varying interpretations of the importance of this medium to pedagogic design and delivery.