DThe aim of the research was to explore whether individual academics ways of making decisions and enacting their careers was changing in the light of an increased marketisation of the system following a move to a fully-fees driven humanities and social science sector in English Universities in the UK and how this interacted with the various aspects of the intersecting identities of academics. Our participants were diverse in terms of social class of origin, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age, nationality and in other characteristics; as well as in relation to biographical experience and an intersectional lens drove our conception of the project and the analysis. One of the strengths of biographical studies is that they allow for the holistic study of individuals that offer nuance and allow us to explore how the lived experience of specific intersecting identities interact across life events and experience and educational contexts to produce emergent outcomes in particular ways (Merrill, 2015). However, with the academics we studied, presenting participants in this holistic way would reveal details that would identify participants. Consequently, the decision has been made to do the analysis in such a way that it has generated 7 composite characters that aim to capture the key themes in the data and illustrate and substantiate the theorisation of the study: which engages with Margaret Archers (2008, 2012) notion of different types of reflexive and a morphogenic society and also engages with understandings derived from theories of embodiment; emotions; time, space and place. The underpinning methodological ideas and concepts for generating the characters from the data draw upon the work of Kip Jones, Gail Crimmins and others who have utilised more artistic and creative methodologies within the social sciences.

Archer, M. 2007. Making our Way Through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archer, M. 2012. The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merrill, Barbara. "Determined to Stay or Determined to Leave? A Tale of Learner Identities, Biographies and Adult Students in Higher Education." Studies in Higher Education 40.10 (2015): 1859-872. Web.