Governing through accountability: Gendered moral selves and the (im)possibilities of resistance in the neoliberal university

Abstract

Drawing on Judith Butler's early work on gender as perfor-mance and her later work on the ethically accountable sub-ject, this study examines the production of gendered moralsubjects under neoliberal governance in contemporary aca-demia. The analysis of 40 semi‐structured in‐depth inter-views with postdoc researchers and assistant, associate andfull professors in a Belgian university reveals how in aca-demics’ narratives of their ethical relations of (non‐)account-ability towards multiple stakeholders, gendered subjects areperformed along the heterosexual matrix reproducing thegender binary. The conjunction of gendered and ethicaldemands imposed through relations of accountability furtheropens up distinctively gendered possibilities of consent andresistance under neoliberal governance. We advance theextant literature on gender in academia which largelyfocuses on women's symbolic struggle to (dis)identify witha masculine professional norm. By locating power in the gen-dered relations of accountability towards multiple others, itre‐conceptualizes gender as an ontological struggle in theconstitution of the self as moral along gendered norms. Thestudy rejoins recent scholarship that calls for the recognitionand elaboration of a relational ethics by showing how suchethics enables the emergence of open and responsive sub-jectivities in relations of accountability.