Becoming a mother in neoliberal academia: Subjectivation and self-identity among early career researchers

Abstract

This paper investigates how becoming a mother—and navigating such a complicated life transition—while pursuing an academic career impacts the way female researchers perceive themselves as acting subjects. By analyzing in-depth virtual interviews with Italian female early career researchers, this work explores the relationship between fertility decisions, motherhood hardships, self-identity, and career-related experiences in the interviewees' biographical trajectories. Despite their consideration of childbearing as a mental and practical obstacle to scientific production, many of the interviewees ascribe positive career outcomes to the arrival of their first child. The reflexivity set in motion by the interview process allows us to observe the collected interviews as double-layered narratives. The postponement of fertility choices and the presence of work-family conflict tend to be described as ordinary facets of a common career pattern, intrinsic to the female academic working experience. Meanwhile, the positive impacts of motherhood on self-identity and work-related skills are recounted on a more individual level, framed as a sort of paradox, a personal journey of self-discovery or—to some extent - a heroic performance.