Purpose
This study aims to analyze the academic positioning of scholars working in district-based vocational schools in Turkiye and to examine the forms of symbolic stigmatization they experience within the academic field. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s Homo Academicus, the research seeks to understand how center–periphery relations operate inside universities and how academics located in structurally peripheral institutions develop informal power and counter-hegemonic strategies. In this context, the study conceptualizes “small-town academia” as a distinctive analytical category that reveals the invisible politics and symbolic hierarchies of higher education.
Method
The study adopts a qualitative research design. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 11 academics working at district vocational schools affiliated with Isparta University of Applied Sciences. Participants represent different academic ranks and disciplinary backgrounds. The interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis, focusing on academic positioning, symbolic exclusion, informal power practices, and counter-power strategies. The analytical framework integrates Ibn Khaldun’s center–periphery and nomadic–sedentary distinction, Bourdieu’s Homo Academicus and symbolic capital, Şerif Mardin’s center–periphery analysis, Arslan’s epistemic community approach, and Foucault’s power–discipline perspective, complemented by Scott’s “hidden transcripts” and Goffman’s stigma theory, as well as the Turkish informal power literature associated with the Isparta School.
Findings
The findings indicate that academics working in district vocational schools face multiple structural and symbolic challenges, including exclusion from recruitment and promotion processes, unequal teaching loads, limited access to research resources, and underrepresentation in formal decision-making mechanisms. These disadvantages are reinforced by stigmatizing discourses such as “small-town academic” and “the filler material of the university,” which function as symbolic tools of marginalization. At the same time, the study reveals that district academics are not merely passive recipients of domination. They actively construct informal counter-power domains through practices of silent resistance, the production of hidden transcripts, solidarity networks, local legitimacy-building, in particular through the strategy of becoming a “consulted actor.” These practices enable them to gain informal influence and symbolic recognition despite their limited formal authority.
Contribution
This study makes three main contributions to the literature. First, it shifts the focus from formal organizational structures to informal power relations and symbolic struggles within higher education institutions. Second, it introduces “small-town academia” as an original analytical category for understanding district-based vocational schools in Turkiye. Third, it extends the Homo Academicus framework beyond elite and central institutions, demonstrating its explanatory power in peripheral academic contexts. Overall, the study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of academic power, center–periphery relations, and informal governance in contemporary higher education systems.
