Affective strategies in the academy: creative methodologies, civic responses and the market

Abstract

Australian Universities face a 'tough' Federal government of sector deregulation and increased student fees following the Universities Australia policy, A Smarter Australia: An Agenda for Australian Higher Education 2013-2016. New technology, globalisation, productivity driven innovation and scientific method are the contexts through which research outcomes, on tighter budgets, will be made. In this paper, we redraw attention to the complexity of research contexts, including media sites, industry and digital worlds. In particular, we foreground the 'turn to affect'. Recent years have witnessed a complex revision of understandings about lived worlds by considering intangibles: affect, emotion and the senses. Universities have also included the performing arts and the digital arts and sciences. The turn to affect is, then, significant beyond discourse, and universities would be wise to encourage less tangible research strategies that impact and respond to the market and, indeed, allow the market responses to affect