Adventures in the multiverse: a collective experience of pracademia

This paper explores the experience of a collective of pracademics who work together at the Centre for Human Security and Social Change at La Trobe University. While there is some emerging scholarship on pracademics as individuals, in this paper we seek to fill a gap in the literature related to the collective practice of a pracademic team. Developed through a structured process of reflection and critical engagement with our own practice, we analyse the challenges and tensions inherent in working as pracademics navigating multiple universes. This includes the impact of misalignment of incentives in academia and industry, our identities as largely white researchers supporting locally led development in the Asia-Pacific and Indigenous Australia, and our positionality within the wider systems we seek to change. We offer suggestions for how pracademics can exploit the shifting incentives resulting from the impact agenda, bring practitioner perspectives to bear on contemporary academic debates, and work more collectively within and across organisations. Our collective experience provides insights into how pracademics can carve out space within academia and play an effective role in informing development practice.