In pursuit of the third mission: Exploring women's participation in academic engagement activities in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Across the globe, there is a growing expectation for academics to generate societal impact by pursuing a third mission alongside their teaching and research missions. Conceptualised as academic engagement (AE), extant research indicates that academics in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) may face challenges in participating in this activity due to existing institutional voids. Drawing on Bourdieu's practice theory and feminist perspectives on gender, work, and organisations, this article explores women researchers' participation in AE activities in six SSA countries: Zambia, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, and Kenya. Through semi-structured interviews with 36 women researchers, we found that beyond institutional voids, gender plays a significant role in AE activities in SSA, influencing the women researchers we studied to engage in homophilous networking, embody masculinity, and enhance their competencies. Based on our findings, we argue that taking a micro-level perspective of AE activities in SSA is pertinent. Such a perspective, we found, empowers us to observe how the generation of societal impact through AE activities may trap women researchers (and other minority groups) into a cycle of low wages, limited career opportunities, and harmful working conditions that may not only affect their well-being, but also widen gender inequality in academia and the broader society.