Subjectivity, governance, and changing conditions of knowledge production in the life sciences

Knowledge producers are ascribed a key role for societal development today, as they produce a key resource for knowledge-based societies. Even as the institutional, social, and cultural environments of research change (c.f. “evaluation society,” “aca-demic capitalism”), we know surprisingly little about how this results in different research practices and knowledge. Building on experiences of studying research cul-tures in the life sciences, I argue in this paper that by studying researchers’ subjecti-fication, we learn how changing conditions are actually translated into a transforma-tion of research processes and about the role of researchers as active agents in this transformation. Put differently, I investigate how we can study subjectification as a locus of change in research cultures. I discuss possible methodological cornerstones of using subjectification as conceptual approach for studying research cultures. Along some analytical extracts, I further demonstrate how this enables us to see tacit forms of governance in cultures of knowledge production.