Cultivating a 'feminist reflexive sensibility' in social research: A re-evaluation of reflexivity and intersectionality in the neoliberal academy

Abstract

This chapter considers how we practice reflexivity as feminist researchers in the neoliberal academy. The marketisation of higher education and the utilisation of public management principles and audit culture have reshaped personal and professional identities and how we navigate our way through university life. Reflexivity is conceptualised as a process extending beyond the researcher to include relationships with others, disciplinary audiences, and the strictures of the neoliberal university. The chapter cautions against the reduction of reflexivity to a box-ticking exercise and urges readers to include their disciplinary communities within their reflective practice, and outlines how the cultivation of a 'feminist reflexive sensibility' can help to facilitate a personal and collective response to the pressures exerted by the neoliberal university. This includes recognition that power and privilege are inherent in the space(s) available for reflexivity and the production of feminist, intersectional, and decolonial research and knowledge.