Regulating and manipulating the corporeal functions of women academics through political rationality: Women academics’ perceptions

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of the politicisation of women academics body in higher education as a result of the implementation of audit culture of new public management.

Design/methodology/approach

The research was conducted in Indonesian universities, by conducting interviews to collect data from 20 women academics from two universities in eastern regions of Indonesia.

Findings

The impacts of audit culture on women academics’ body in this study can be understood from the constraints told by them, reflected on the creation of several types of bodies.

Research limitations/implications

This paper, though, has some limitations in terms of the inclusion of only women academics, exclusion of male academics and of their limitations of addressing important constructs to elaborate the politicisation of the women body, such as culture, religion, patriarchy, and academic tribes and territories.

Practical implications

The results of this study are important for the policy maker of Indonesia to take into account “gender perspective” on research productivity and publication policy to effectively obtain the political objectives of the government. For higher education in Indonesia, the result of this study may give an indication of the importance to establish different and distinctive standards of work performance evaluation on research and publication for female and male academics.

Originality/value

The analysis of this issue is framed within the bipolar diagram of power that seeks to gain political-economic function of the body (bio-power), via a set of control mechanisms of sovereign power to regulate and manipulate the population (bio-politics), developed by Foucault (1984).

Citation

Gaus, N. (2019), "Regulating and manipulating the corporeal functions of women academics through political rationality: Women academics’ perceptions", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 698-718. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-11-2018-0238