‘Ethics review, neoliberal governmentality and the activation of moral subjects’

Abstract

This article examines forms of subjectivation propagated through the processes and practices of ethics review in UK Higher Education Institutions. Codified notions of research ethics are particularly prevalent in the university context along with stringent institutional regulation of the procedures surrounding ethics review of research proposals. Michel Foucault’s concept of neoliberal governmentality is argued in this article to help illuminate the combination of power processes reflected in ethics review practices. These operate insidiously in accordance with a neoliberal rationality that champions self-sustaining individuals and the inauguration of human capital. Moreover, ethics review processes and attendant regulatory modes of control compound the construction of the student as a ‘permanent performer’ and the associated requirement for her to self-govern through risk management. A combination of overtly controlling and self-relational mechanisms of neoliberal governmentality are in operation, both of which have the potential to generate particular forms of subjectivation in the university context. Foucault’s conceptualisation of the ethical relation to the self helps indicate alternative, resistant styles of self-confrontation to those correlating with neoliberal governmentality. These are based on autonomous choice-making and self-censoring rather than unquestioning conformity to the regimens of ethics review.

Keywords:

• Foucault
• research ethics
• neoliberalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Self-constitution of the subject conceptualised in Foucault’s later thinking, wherein he conceded he was overly occupied with dominating modes of power (Peters & Besley, 2007), did not represent a ‘discreet’ phase (Rosenberg & Milchman, 2010, p. 65). Foucault’s interests in power endured, as stated, for instance, in The Birth of Biopolitics: “control is no longer the necessary counterweight to freedom, as in the case of panopticism: it becomes its mainspring” (Foucault, 2008, p. 67).

2 These were a matter of self-vigilance and constant testing of one’s enactment of an edict such as to be in control of one’s thoughts, or how one relates to practices such as going for a walk (Foucault, 1988).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fiona James

Dr Fiona James is a lecturer in Education Studies and researcher at the University of Hull, UK. Her research interests surround social theory, interactionist and socially situated approaches to empirical research and questions of ‘self’ within formal and informal educational contexts.