'We are the rump who do not do the cool things': A Foucaultian/ i ekian influenced exploration of the impact of accountability regimes on academic subjectivity in Irish higher education
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2011Access:
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Loxley, A. and Seery, A., We are the rump who do not do the cool things : A Foucaultian/ i ekian influenced exploration of the impact of accountability regimes on academic subjectivity in Irish higher education, British Sociological Association Annual Conference, Leeds, April 2011, 2011Download Item:
BSA 11 Paper.pdf (Pre-print (author's copy) - Non-Peer Reviewed) 239.0Kb
Abstract:
This paper reports on
a
project aimed at examining the impact of accountability regimes on academic
identity/identities in Ireland. Framed by a view of Foucaultian power rela
tions and the Žiž
ekian idea that academic
life may contain irreducible fissures and voids that defy any to
talizing descriptions, a number of extended interviews
were carried out with academics in four of Ireland’s seven universities. An initial analysis of the defining tensions in
the lives of three of the academics interviewed reveals the difficult negotiatio
n of their identities on three levels
framed by policy, discipline and institution. These tensions are characterized by a heightened sensitivity and
awareness of power relations both within and external to the university and manifest themselves in some cas
es in
variable modes of acceptance and resistance to the use of metrics
-
actual or anticipated. A second result of the
analysis is that the
Ž
i
žeki
an notion of an inherent disruptive “excess” in the internal dialectic between metric and
accountability syst
ems and self is not [yet!] evident in the lives under consideration. However, the interpretative
framework adopted is offered as a useful tool that reveals the tensions academics lives in a new light. [191]
Author's Homepage:
http://people.tcd.ie/seeryahttp://people.tcd.ie/loxleya
Author: SEERY, AIDAN; LOXLEY, ANDREW
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British Sociological Association Annual ConferenceType of material:
Conference PaperCollections:
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Full text availableKeywords:
Žižek, Foucault,, academic work, academic identitySubject (TCD):
Identities in Transformation , Higher EducationLicences: