“You need to step back when you're contract faculty”: Information Practices and Care in Casual Academic Work

Abstract

This study uses the concepts of information practices and care as theoretical lenses to explore the information practices of casual academic staff, who experience complex information contexts. Semi‐structured online interviews followed by thematic qualitative data analysis revealed that, while these academics care deeply about their contributions to student learning, they experience a lack of institutional support and care. This experience leads to individualized information practices, and dependence on an uncertain and unreliable information landscape, characterized by information marginalization, information precarity, and information vulnerability. Exposing the informational challenges experienced by this large subpopulation of academic laborers can support efforts to improve their information environments and support their work. The study also contributes to contemporary theoretical understandings of information vulnerability within academic contexts.