The spatiotemporal dimension of doctoral education : a way forward

Abstract

For an individual doctoral student, doctoral education happens in multiple spaces across a considerable amount of time. However, the existing literature and conceptualisations of doctoral education do not adequately address the spatiotemporal dimension related to it. By using the concept of scales, this article examines how the social action of doing doctoral studies is affected by space and time. As a mode of inquiry, I use nexus analysis, which allows the analyst to spotlight issues that routinely go unnoticed by scholars, policy-makers but also doctoral students themselves. Based on the analysis, I argue that to theorise doctoral education further, its spatiotemporal dimension has to be examined more closely and considered more seriously than is currently being done by higher education scholars.