Intellectual workers (un)doing neoliberal discourse

Bronwyn Davies, Eva B. Petersen

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    In this paper we explore how academics make sense of their current work conditions and in particular how they have been subjected, and have subjected themselves, to neoliberal discourse. Inspired by Richardson (1997), we present an interview with an academic about the impact of neoliberalism on her intellectual work, using poetic representation. We analyse the poetic representation by drawing on several conceptual technologies from poststructural theory, including the idea that power induces rather than merely represses. The paper explores the ambivalent take-up and refusal of neoliberal discourse through an analysis of the 'infinitesimal mechanisms' at work on the embodied subject, each with 'their own history, their own trajectory, their own techniques and tactics' in subjeaing individuals (Foucault, 1980:99). We examine how 'the mechanisms of power have been - and continue to be - invested, colonised, utilised, involuted, transformed, displaced, extended etc' (Foucault, 1980:99) through the subjection of individuals in today's universities.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalSubjectivity: International Journal of Critical Psychology
    Publication statusPublished - 2005

    Keywords

    • neoliberalism
    • academics
    • poststructuralism
    • discourse analysis
    • universities
    • critique

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