Abstract
Based on the crafting of seven fictional stories, the making of academic subjects in universities in times of neoliberal ethos is examined. The simultaneous configuration of subjects and objects of research is grasped in the term research(ing) subjects. Neoliberal governing generates the affect of anxiety as a socially manufactured intensity connected to precarity. We claim that the power effects of neoliberal configurations through the affect of anxiety is a particular governing strategy of subjectivation, and that its effects in making both researching and research subjects direct toward an economic logic where the self of academics and their work is shaped as insufficient. Putting the gaze on research(ing) subjects and anxiety is a way to disclosing the public secret of governing through affect and thus reimagining possibilities for resistance and meaningful academic work.
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This research is part of NordForsk Centre of Excellence: Justice through education (JustEd). The authors thank Vanessa D’Oliveira Andreotti, and other colleagues whose stories are included in this paper.
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Brunila, K., Valero, P. Anxiety and the making of research(ing) subjects in neoliberal academia. Subjectivity 11, 74–89 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-017-0043-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-017-0043-9