The embodied, entangled self and complicity in the neoliberal academy

• Published in: International politics (Hague, Netherlands) Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 753 - 756
• Main Author: Barthwal-Datta, Monika
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01.06.2025; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Careers; Complicity; Development Studies; Embodiment; Foreign Policy; Internalization; International Political Economy; International Relations; Neoliberalism; Original Article; Political Science; Political Science and International Relations; Political Science and International Studies; Productivity; Storytelling; Writing; Privilege; Storytelling; Neoliberal academy; Complicity; Whiteness
• ISSN: 1384-5748; 1740-3898
• DOI: 10.1057/s41311-025-00669-x

In The Self, and Other Stories: Being , Knowing, Writing , Laura Shepherd illuminates the embodied and entangled nature of knowing the self, and the self as a ‘knowing subject’ in the neoliberal, violent, and exclusionary academy. Here, I explore some of the ways in which such embodiment and entanglements of the self in the academy are made (in)visible in and through the stories and storytelling in Laura’s book. I focus particularly on Laura’s recounting of her complicity with the institution, for instance through her internalization of the individualized responsibility for ‘success’ in the neoliberal academy towards hyper-productivity, and her embodying and enacting of the ‘serious’ ‘knowing’ subject in academia. Noting the significance of such stories for the demystification of ‘success’ as an academic, and the cost such success may extract from the self, I consider how there is still room left to reflect on the implications of such complicity by relatively privileged bodies, for those bodies positioned differently and differentially in the neoliberal university.