Apprendre les normes, s’y conformer, résister : une autoethnographie théâtrale en duo de chercheuses en début de carrière

This article examines how the dialectic of compliance and resistance to the neoliberal university is experienced and performed in the process of becoming an academic. Drawing on a theatrical autoethnography co-authored and co-performed by two early-career women academics, the study explores three interrelated themes through a feminist ethics of care: being women and becoming researchers; becoming researchers while remaining community activists; and being researchers and feminists. The article contributes to scholarship on the neoliberal university by illuminating how academics learn, internalize, and contest prescribed modes of relating to the self and to others. We theorize a form of resistance that is relational and affective, grounded in care, and reflect on the role of autoethnography as both a method of compliance and a strategy of resistance.