Work

Governing the academic subject: Foucault, governmentality and the performing university

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: Drawing on research conducted at National University of Ireland, Galway, this paper explores how senior managers at an Irish university are seeking to measure and facilitate academic performance in the context of national and global competitiveness and a higher education landscape that appears firmly inflected by neoliberal ideas of rankings, benchmarking and productivity. I draw upon Michel Foucault’s writings on governmentality and biopolitics, in particular, and I utilise findings from a range of in-depth interviews with central university managers, with a view to critically interrogating the envisioning of what is undoubtedly a new academic subjectivity in the Irish higher education sector—a subjectivity that is being progressively planned for and regulated.

Source: Oxford Review of Education

DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2013.860891

Author: John Morrissey

Institution: Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway

Language: English

Topic: Higher Education Governance and Development

Subfield: Political Science and International Relations

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

Funder: University of Galway