Ethics and Politics in Spanish Universities. The research assessment as a Technology of Subjectivity

Abstract

Through our work, we seek to analyse critically the transformation of educational subjectivities produced by discourses and practices within the framework of the current reform process that Spanish universities are undergoing. This transformation is linked to neoliberal government rationales, but we would like to describe it taking into account the local coordination modalities which characterize the context of Spanish universities. To do so, we focus on a technology which structures and feeds on discourses and key practices in the reform process: the six-year research period (sexennium). As a technology of subjectivity, it represents a system of thought involved in the development of moral codes which emphasize an ideal of responsible autonomy, through notions - colonized by the language of neomanagement - like excellence and entrepreneurship. However, it also establishes a practice which articulates techniques like assessment and accountability. These techniques encourage professors' voluntary and continuous involvement in increasing their research output as well as they channel the production of knowledge in agreement with competitiveness and productivity criteria. By jeans of these procedures, faculty acquire an ethos, a specific relationship with itself which we would like to subject to criticism, highlighting the naturalizing and depoliticizing effects of the process we analyse, but also asking questions about the possibility of producing other reflexive paths.