Women, research and the politics of professional development

In recent years, a number of authors have applied Foucault's theory of governmentality to an analysis of the ways in which subjectivities are constituted in contemporary workplaces. The case has been well made that through the discursive practices of neo‐liberal reform of organizations workers have been reconstituted as self‐regulating, self‐managing subjects. In this article the author uses the tools provided in Foucault's work to explore the role of professional development in shaping the subjectivities of workers in order to create ‘governable subjects’. The site for this study is WomenResearch 21, a women's research development programme at an Australian university. The purpose of this article is to explore whether professional development programmes can also create spaces within which women might develop and sustain alternative subject positions within the dominant discourses of academic lives. This issue has widespread relevance given the focus on professional development as a key response to the continuing low representation of women in senior positions in universities.