Abstract
Affective subjectivation is a notion that describes the processes by which academics are inclined to turn themselves into manageable subjects within the context of precarious academic life. Based on three fictional, realistic stories, three topics are discussed: precaritisation in academia as an organisation and the relationship between managers and academics; the governing through affect in the constant ambivalence between anxiety and self-development; and the power effects of these two together in creating neoliberal academic subjects. Both the strategy of working with fictional stories and the analytical stance allows opening up the public secrets of the ways in which neoliberal precarious conditions govern the lives and bodies of academics nowadays. Disclosing those secrets is a form of resistance against the violence of current affective subjectivation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Per Olaf Aamodt and Svein Kyvik, “Access to Higher Education in the Nordic Countries,” in Understanding Mass Higher Education. Comparative Perspectives on Access, ed. Ted Tapper and David Palfreyman. (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2005), 121.
- 2.
Kristiina Brunila and Kristiina Hannukainen, “Academic Researchers on the Project Market in the Ethos of Knowledge Capitalism,” European Educational Research Journal 16 (2017) 907; Gritt B. Nilsen, Figuration Work: Student Participation, Democracy and University Reform in a Global Knowledge Economy (New York: Berghahn, 2015).
- 3.
See for example, Arto Jauhiainen, Annukka Jauhiainen, Anne Laiho, and Reeta Lehto. “Fabrications, Time-Consuming Bureaucracy and Moral Dilemmas – Finnish University Employees’ Experiences on the Governance of University Work,” Higher Education Policy 28 (2014) 393.
- 4.
Judith Butler, Precarious Life – The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2006); Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
- 5.
Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory, 15; Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).
- 6.
IPC, “Anxiety, Affective Struggle, and Precarity Consciousness-Raising,” Interface: A journal for and about social movements 6 (2014) 271.
- 7.
Mary Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), xii.
- 8.
Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” in Michel Foucault – Power – Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984 (Volume 3), ed. James D. Faubion (London: Penguin, 2000), 326.
- 9.
Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (New York: Zone Books, 2015), 83.
- 10.
Butler, Precarious Life.
- 11.
Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory, 15.
- 12.
Carl Rhodes, and Oriana Milani Price, “The Post-Bureaucratic Parasite: Contrasting Narratives of Organizational Change in Local Government,” Management Learning 42 (2011) 241.
- 13.
Kenneth M. Jørgensen, “Spaces of Performance: A Storytelling Approach to Learning in Higher Education,” The Learning Organization 25 (in press, Issue 6, 2018).
- 14.
Gilles Deleuze, “Postscripts on the Societies of Control,” October 59 (1992) 3.
- 15.
Michel Foucault, “Politics and Reason,” In Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman (New York: Routledge, 1988), 57.
- 16.
Helle Bjerg and Dorthe Staunaes, “Self-management Through Shame – Uniting Governmentality Studies and the ‘Affective Turn’,” Ephemera. Theory and Politics in Organization 12 (2011) 138.
- 17.
Berlant, Cruel Optimism.
- 18.
Berlant, Cruel Optimism, 23–24.
- 19.
Berlant, Cruel Optimism, 13.
- 20.
See also Nikolas Rose, Inventing Our Selves. Psychology, Power and Personhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Kristiina Brunila, “A Diminished Self. Entrepreneurial and Therapeutic Ethos working with A Common Aim,” European Educational Research Journal 11 (2012) 477.
- 21.
Tobias Dam Hede, Coaching – Samtalekunst og Ledelsesdisciplin [Coaching: The Art of Conversation and Discipline of Leadership] (København: Samfundslitteratur, 2010).
- 22.
Eduardo Ibarra-Colado, Stewart R. Clegg, Carl Rhodes and Martin Kornberger, “The Ethics of Managerial Subjectivity,” Journal of Business Ethics 64 (2006) 45.
- 23.
Ann L. Cunliffe and Matthew Eriksen, “Relational Leadership,” Human Relations 64 (2011) 1425.
- 24.
Michel Foucault, “Politics and Reason”.
- 25.
Bronwyn Davies, “The (Im)Possibility of Intellectual Work in Neoliberal Regimes”. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 26 (2005) 1; 9–10.
- 26.
Davies, “The (Im)Possibility of Intellectual Work in Neoliberal Regimes”, 9–10.
- 27.
Davies, 9.
- 28.
Brown, Undoing the Demos, 134.
- 29.
See for example, Tuuli Kurki and Kristiina Brunila, “Education and Training as Projectised and Precarious Politics,” Power & Education 6 (2014) 283.
- 30.
See Isabell Lorey, “Governmental Precarization,” European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies (2011), accessed March 11, 2017, http://eipcp.net/transversal/0811/lorey/en
- 31.
Jukka Peltokoski, “Luokka Luokkaa Vastaan.” [Class Against Class]. Niin & Näin, 1 (2012), 98; 98.
- 32.
See also Kurki et al.
- 33.
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998); Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory.
- 34.
Gilles Deleuze, “What Is a Dispositif?” in Michel Foucault – Philosopher ed. Timothy.J. Armstrong (New York: Routledge, 1992), 159; Gilles Deleuze, Foucault (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2006); Richard Edwards, “Actively Seeking Subjects,” In Foucault and Lifelong Learning – Governing the Subject, ed. Andreas Fejes and Katherine Nicoll (London, Routledge, 2008), 21.
- 35.
Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” 333.
- 36.
Deleuze, 2006, 89.
Bibliography
Aamodt, Per Olaf and Svein Kyvik. “Access to Higher Education in the Nordic Countries.” In Understanding Mass Higher Education. Comparative Perspectives on Access, edited by Ted Tapper and David Palfreyman, 121–138. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2005.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998.
Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011.
Bjerg, Helle and Dorthe Staunaes. “Self-Management Through Shame – Uniting Governmentality Studies and the ‘Affective Turn’.” Ephemera. Theory and Politics in Organization, 12 (2011): 138–156.
Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books, 2015.
Brunila, Kristiina. “A Diminished Self. Entrepreneurial and Therapeutic Ethos Working with A Common Aim.” European Educational Research Journal, 11 (2012): 477–486.
Brunila, Kristiina. “The Ambivalences of Becoming a Professor in Neoliberal Academia.” Qualitative Inquiry, 22 (2015): 386–394.
Brunila, Kristiina and Kristiina Hannukainen. “Academic Researchers on the Project Market in the Ethos of Knowledge Capitalism.” European Educational Research Journal, 16 (2017): 907–920.
Butler, Judith. Precarious Life – The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso, 2006.
Butler, Judith. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
Cunliffe, Ann L. and Matthew Eriksen. “Relational Leadership.” Human Relations, 64 (2011): 1425–1449.
Davies, Bronwyn. “The (Im)Possibility of Intellectual Work in Neoliberal Regimes”. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 26 (2005): 1–14.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscripts on the Societies of Control.” October, 59 (1992a): 3–7.
Deleuze, Gilles. “What Is a Dispositif?” In Michel Foucault – Philosopher edited by Timothy J. Armstrong, 159–168. New York, NY: Routledge, 1992b.
Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2006.
Edwards, Richard. “Actively Seeking Subjects.” In Foucault and Lifelong Learning – Governing the Subject, edited by Andreas Fejes and Katherine Nicoll, 21–33. London, Routledge, 2008.
Foucault, Michel. “Politics and Reason.” In Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984, edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman, 57–85. New York: Routledge, 1988.
Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power.” In Michel Foucault – Power – Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984 (Volume 3), edited by James D. Faubion, 326–348. London: Penguin, 2000.
Hede, Tobias Dam. Coaching – Samtalekunst og Ledelsesdisciplin [Coaching: The Art of Conversation and Discipline of Leadership]. København: Samfundslitteratur, 2010.
Ibarra-Colado, Eduardo, Stewart R. Clegg, Carl Rhodes and Martin Kornberger. “The Ethics of Managerial Subjectivity.” Journal of Business Ethics, 64 (2006): 45–55.
IPC (The Institute for Precarious Consciousness). “Anxiety, Affective Struggle, and Precarity Consciousness-Raising.” Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements, 6 (2014): 271–300.
Kurki, Tuuli and Kristiina Brunila. “Education and Training as Projectised and Precarious Politics.” Power & Education, 6 (2014): 283–294.
Jauhiainen, Arto, Annukka Jauhiainen, Anne Laiho, and Reeta Lehto. “Fabrications, Time-Consuming Bureaucracy and Moral Dilemmas – Finnish University Employees’ Experiences on the Governance of University Work.” Higher Education Policy, 28 (2014): 393–410.
Jørgensen, Kenneth M. “Spaces of Performance: A Storytelling Approach to Learning in Higher Education.” The Learning Organization, 25, (Issue 6, 2018).
Lorey, Isabell. “Governmental Precarization.” European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, (2011). Accessed March 11, 2017. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0811/lorey/en
Nilsen, Gritt B. Figuration Work: Student Participation, Democracy and University Reform in a Global Knowledge Economy. New York: Berghahn, 2015.
Peltokoski, Jukka. “Luokka Luokkaa Vastaan.” [Class Against Class]. Niin & Näin, 1 (2012): 98–101.
Poovey, Mary. A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Rhodes, Carl and Oriana Milani Price. “The Post-Bureaucratic Parasite: Contrasting Narratives of Organizational Change in Local Government.” Management Learning, 42 (2011): 241–260.
Rose, Nikolas. Inventing Our Selves. Psychology, Power and Personhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valero, P., Jørgensen, K.M., Brunila, K. (2019). Affective Subjectivation in the Precarious Neoliberal Academia. In: Bottrell, D., Manathunga, C. (eds) Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education Volume I. Palgrave Critical University Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95942-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95942-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-95941-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-95942-9
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)