Faculty Agency, Neoliberal Reform, and the Emergence of Entrepreneur Academics in Zambia

Abstract

This study investigates Zambian academics' construction and reformation of identity in the context of neoliberal reform of higher education since the 1990s. It employs interviews with carefully chosen academics to investigate how they recognised and acted upon several subject positions made available by a neoliberal climate. According to the research study, academics have agency in articulating and re-articulating their identities. Evidence suggests that, far from being passive objects in the neoliberal university's discursive constitution, these academics actively participate in the discourses and negotiate their identities to survive. The study will hopefully broaden the literature's notion of identity by increasing our understanding of how academics overcome material and contextual constraints.