Neo-liberalism, ethics, and academic output: subjectivation and resistance on graduate programs in Brazil

The culture of assessment is an important social control device. In higher education, the productivist logic is just another expression of the ubiquity of neo-liberalism, which engenders modes of subjectivation and capture in settings that should safeguard possibilities of resistance. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of ethics, this article describes the experiences of graduate students regarding what we call neoliberal productivist morality in an academic context. We present fragments of an intervention study that includes semi-structured interviews and photography workshops with 10 students from five graduate programs in Brazilian universities. The findings point to subjection to productivist morality in an academic context and forms of questioning and resistance articulated in the subjects’ relationships with themselves, providing a glimpse of the vulnerability of graduate students, who, with high levels of output, are regarded as success stories.

Academic productivism; Higher education assessment; Research education; Photograph workshops