This article presents an analysis of the experiences of scholars in a universitywide curriculum reform in one public research university. The focus is on the intentions and dynamics that shape the curriculum process in the local communities of practice. The data, comprised of interviews with twenty-five scholars, are examined as experience-centred narratives of curriculum change.Two distinct types of narrative-dialogical and reproductive-are found to reflect how the curriculum change was negotiated. In further analysis, Wenger's dimensions of communities of practice, namely, mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire, are used as a conceptual framework to identify the intentions and dynamics behind the narratives. The following dimensions emerged: (1) intending to cross borders versus maintaining prevailing traditions and positions; (2) attempting to find shared goals versus delaying or discontinuing the process; and (3) having enough curiosity to familiarise oneself with the unfamiliar versus deprecating and rejecting it.

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This study explores academics' changing agency in curriculum work in higher education. Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital, followed by the metaphor of game, are used as tools to analyse stability and change in agency. The interview data collection from 17 academics was implemented twice over 3 years after two different processes of curriculum change at one multidisciplinary research university in Finland. Through narrative analysis, two storylines were identified. The storyline with changes in agency included transformative, sidelined and divided narratives. The storyline with stable agency included developmentoriented, autonomous and opposition narratives. The lived experiences create habitus as it is, as internalization of social structures but also as unconscious enterprises to maintain old or develop new forms of capital through curriculum change. While competing for the capital, the habitus and the 'feel of the game' are shifting. The different narratives show how academics as players in the field of curriculum change have different access to compete for different types of capital. The results raise a question: who can legitimately become an agent in the curriculum process, and what qualities make for an academic 'fit' with curriculum change?