Rebuilding a Culture of Trust in Teaching and Learning in an Era of Generative Distrust

Abstract

This research paper examines how generative AI is accelerating an existing crisis of trust in higher education teaching and learning. While AI is often positioned as either a transformative opportunity or an existential threat, these polarised narratives obscure deeper epistemic and pedagogical fractures. Drawing on Eller’s concept of abundant betweenness, the paper develops a forces model that explains how AI-driven disruption compresses the liminal spaces in which academic communities negotiate meaning, agency, and identity. It argues that generative distrust, fuelled by AI and the perceptions and realities of instability, surveillance, and weakened epistemic cues, undermines confidence in teaching, learning, and assessment. Rebuilding trust requires intentional, transparent, community centred design towards AI adoption rather than reactive governance.