Scholar-activism as an object of study in a diverse literature: preconditions, forms, and implications

Scholar-activism—academic scholars engaging in some form of activism—has recently become a prominent phenomenon as we witness calls for scholars to engage in political, social, and environmental causes that go beyond their traditional academic duties. An emerging literature focuses on scholar-activism as an object of study. However, the literature is scattered across rather disconnected disciplines and research fields, with few empirically and theoretically well-grounded studies. In this paper, we review this literature and identify the diverse ways in which the phenomenon of scholar-activism has been studied, what is known, and what remains to be explored. This study is based on a systematic scoping literature review drawing on a diverse set of 85 publications from fields such as sociology, geography, management studies, and pedagogy. From the inductive analysis of the papers, three major themes emerge: preconditions, forms, and implications of scholar-activism. Preconditions refer to individual, organisational, and institutional factors conditioning engagement in scholar-activism. Forms involve the various ways in which scholar-activism is enacted, including activist research, teaching, and collaboration. The implications include individual, epistemic, and societal consequences of scholar-activism. The findings of this study provide insights into the growing but still diverse literature on scholar-activism and identify areas for future research and theoretical development.