Mapping Third Space through Writing

We have been inhabiting third space (TS) – both knowingly and unknowingly – for a long time now, and the shift from not knowing to knowing about its formal delineation brought with it a fundamental change in our professional identity. Discovering Celia Whitchurch’s conceptualisation of third space in HE meant understanding something about who we are and where we belong, even if outsiders to TS might remain puzzled by its very raison d’être. Being thus lifted from the cracks between the traditionally charted territories in academia began the process of becoming, of finding new ways of thinking about ourselves. It was writing, hitherto a familiar but freighted activity, that emerged for us as a map that renders the landscape, connects people and ideas, and helps us find our way around. No wonder then that writing has become so intrinsic to how we both see ourselves and contribute to critical conversations around the nature, purpose, and challenges of higher education today.

Hence for us, TS has a very particular meaning, and that meaning is negotiated through the act of producing knowledge. We have argued before that writing is a space of opportunity (Buckley et al., 2024), in terms of expanding one’s professional identity. Through conversations with other colleagues who engage in writing for publication, we have discovered that our ideas resonate, and that writing for them is equally empowering, transformative, and connective. This is why we interrogate its meaning and value with our guests on the Learning Development Project podcast, with some conversations focusing on the intersection of TS and writing, most notably with Emily McIntosh and Diane Nutt and Julie Hall (Buckley and Syska, 2024). In keeping with our mission to expand the spaces in which these conversations can happen, at the recent Third Space Slowposium we invited participants to explore their own relationship with writing and its impact on TS identity by opening the conversation with our special podcast episode and encouraging engagement with these ideas through a Padlet. The dynamic exchange that followed revealed an appetite for writing that was free from constraints, echoing our previous research discoveries.

The fluidity and openness in publishing formats and writing styles that TS researchers and practitioners encounter, embrace, and embark upon point to writing being a form of liberation from the constraints attached to scholarly publishing as traditionally practised and understood (Syska and Buckley, 2022). Whether publications are formal journal articles or ‘grey literature’, encompassing blogs, opinion pieces, policy, poetry or indeed podcasts, writing can be experienced as a form of assertiveness and visibility, countering the often problematic constraints imposed on research time for TS practitioners, where it is often a luxury. Regardless of the format and output, the act of writing itself can serve as a stabilising force in a space that is often uncertain and fluid.

We saw this force in action in the recent Special Issue of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (JLDHE) dedicated to TS. The impressive number of articles in the collection, 57 in total, testifies to the desire to engage with the conceptualisations of TS and contribute to the ever evolving conversation. Organised across four areas: collaboration and partnerships; identity and positioning; leadership, influence and credibility; and careers and professional development, the Special Issue adds another layer to the existing map of TS. Through such conversations, TS writers enter into and shape a community that is built on emergent ideas, collaborations, friendships even. They write because – as Emily and Diane put it in the podcast – they find it ‘healing’ and ‘joyful’, ‘empowering’ and ‘help[ing] us to really get a grip on who we are’.

Rather than treating TS as a cosy safe space, however, we call for it to be seen as a type of brave space – one open to contestation and development in directions that empower, inspire, and offer a community to its members, but one that does not have to rely on consensus. Indeed, the Special Issue of JLDHE contains welcome critiques of the TS concept, encouraging a debate over its ‘limited cultural context’ and inability to set clear boundaries around it. We need these dialectical forces to keep the conversation around TS lively, productive, and promising to its members. It is through writing that we can get there.

References

Begun, M. (2025) ‘Truly emergent? A critique of “third space” in cross-cultural context’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 33. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi33.1236

Buckley, C. and Syska, A. (2023) The Learning Development Project podcast. Available at: https://aldinhe.ac.uk/networking/the-ld-project-podcast/ 

Buckley, C., Syska, A. and Heggie, L. (2024) ‘Grounded in liquidity: writing and identity in third space’, London Review of Education, 22(1), 26. Available at: https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.22.1.26

Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (2022) ‘Writing as liberatory practice: Unlocking knowledge to locate an academic field’, Teaching in Higher Education, 28(2), pp.439–454. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2022.2114337  

White, S. (2025) ‘On third space and critical paralysis: The case for a pragmatic conception of third space to advance Learning Development in higher education’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 33. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi33.1260