“I’m an Academic, Now What?”: Exploring Later-Career Women’s Academic Identities in Australian Higher Education Using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The becoming of, and being, a later-career woman academic is marked by being positioned to play a key role in the operation of the academic institution. Tensions emerge when later-career women academics are expected to balance these expectations, while simultaneously contemplating how they choose to remain, work, and identify within academia. We qualitatively explored how Australian later-career women academics conceptualise their academic identities, and the subject positions made available through their discourse. Aged between 43 and 72 years, 17 participants were interviewed. Data was analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. Four subject positions were identified—The Insecure Woman, who experienced tensions between the academic that the system required them to be, compared to the academic that they wanted to be; The Expert Academic, viewed by other individuals as the voice of reason within academia; The Reflective Academic, who reflects on, and summarises, their academic career; and The Disengaging Academic, who begins to transition out of their academic roles and responsibilities. Overall, the identified discourses created subjectivities questioning how much one has contributed to the academic setting, what it means to have been a part of academia, as well as evaluating what it means to identify beyond it.