Page 38 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

36 CHAPTER 2
as their identity work and work motivation (Hakala, 2009), their experiences of relocation (McAlpine, 2012), their career satisfaction (Van der Weijden et al., 2016), their career practices (Müller, 2014), and their roles, functions and career prospects (Åkerlind, 2005). These studies mainly show the struggles and anxieties that postdocs experience. Inspired by Critical Management Studies, we take a different approach by moving away from the individual to the power laden system that produces the demands and criteria for postdocs. This evokes questions as to how inequalities in the academic workforce are produced by the projectification of academia, who are in the position to construct the criteria and the demands for postdocs, and what does the temporary nature of positions means for the criteria concerning postdoc candidates? In order to answer these questions we provide a critical analysis on the recruitment and selection of postdocs, as this is the power process in which the ideal candidate is constructed. We take into account disciplinary differences, as we learn from previous studies that the proportion of postdocs varies by discipline (Ackers & Oliver, 2007; Nerad & Cerny, 1999). For example, in STEM the postdoc position is a necessary step on the academic career ladder whereas in SSH this is more rare, however, the number of postdoc positions in this field is growing (Bessudnov et al., 2015).
2.3 The ideal academic
Previous studies on academic staff evaluation have shown that when individuals involved in academic recruitment and selection talk about their preferred candidate, they reproduce the profile of the ideal academic (Bleijenbergh, Van Engen, & Vinkenburg, 2013; Van Arensbergen, 2014; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012a). This profile reflects the norm of the ideal academic as “someone who gives total priority to work and has no outside interests and responsibilities” (Bailyn, 2003, p. 139) and as “a lone, independent individual, who is self-protective, competitive, ruthless and not that collegiate or supportive of colleagues and students” (Bleijenbergh et al., 2013, p. 24).
Furthermore, academic power relations influence who gets to construct the ideal academic. Studies on the notion of the ideal academic also revealed that this ideal operates as both an inclusionary and an exclusionary mechanism (e.g., Bleijenbergh et al., 2013; Lund, 2012; Thornton, 2013; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012b). These studies show for instance how the ideal academic is gendered; the constructed ideal encompasses masculine characteristics and therefore women academics are expected not to fit the ideal. In this study we will examine how principal investigators include or exclude researchers from the ideal norm, focusing on postdoc positions.