This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Senses of the Subject Neoliberalism, Psychic Investments and the Capacity to Care in Finance and Accounting Baker, Darren Thomas Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). 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Acknowledgements I would like, firstly, to thank the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) for their vital funding in carrying out this research. Secondly, there are many things for which I could thank my academic supervisor, Prof Elisabeth K Kelan. However, I feel particularly inclined to thank her for the interest and encouragement that she has shown in what became an empirically, theoretically and methodically ambitious project. By all accounts, this is a very rare but important quality. I am also grateful to my second academic supervisor, Dr Dirk Vom Lehn, for his counsel and impromptu political discussions. It is also difficult to see how I could be where I am today without the early support, and patience, as an undergraduate, of Dr Michael Freeman. I would also like to thank Prof Linda McDowell whose work on masculinities in post-industrial UK evoked in me an unquenchable thirst to understand gender and ethics at work. Although the research was not ethnographic, I often felt, curiously, as if it were; London is a key organ in the neoliberal corpus and it was hard not to notice the different ways in which qualities, such as narcissism and individualism, were defensively embodied and lived out in everyday life in the capital, which despite its frivolity, leaves an undeniable melancholic hue. This experience undoubtedly alerted me to aspects of the workplace that perhaps I would not have otherwise noted. Although it often felt ironic as a economically precarious student in one of the most expensive cities in the world, listening to the legitimate challenges faced by relatively privileged women (and men) in accounting and finance, I do think there is much more to be said about the encroachment and colonisation of precarity on middle class, ‘bourgeois’ workers under neoliberalism. This raised important practical questions for me around how one could build greater consciousness of this across class boundaries. I am, therefore, grateful to the PhD for this important political ‘awakening’. ! 2 There are many people who have touched my life over the last three years, far too many than perhaps I can detail in this small space. However, I feel inclined to thank, in particular, my sister, Laura Jane, Aunty Colleen and my nin, Margaret, who have been important figures for me whilst living away, and through whom I am recalled of my Scouse and Celtic ancestry. I would also like to thank Ms Stephanie Bigelow and Ms Katie Hamilton-Emmons who, despite significant geographical boundaries, have both remained important confidantes, and Dr Scarlett Brown and Dr Deborah Brewis, for their continued solidarity. It goes without saying that “The PhD Girls”, Alexandra Stroleny, Lea Samek, and Didem Taser, have given me much needed support in the PhD Office, which was arguably the closest thing I ever had to a permanent home during my three years. I would also like to say a special thank-you to Dr Nathia Pratista and Mr Anthony Psaila, whose generosity I can only hope to repay one day. Finally, to Monste Moya, Alba Teuler Moya and Laia Teuler Moya, my surrogate, Catalan family, who have ‘rescued’ me again, and who will be looking after me during my forthcoming sabbatical in Barcelona – moltes mercés! ! 3 This thesis is dedicated to all those who reflect each day, whether big or small, on how they can stand in solidarity and empathy with others. ! 4 Abstract There is a lacuna of research exploring gender from a psychosocial perspective in accounting and finance. This thesis explores the experiences and psycho-discursive dynamics at the subject-level, and how they interconnect with broader neoliberal discourses circulating in the UK. This contributes to our understanding of how economic rationales shape the psychic lives of employees. Firstly, the thesis explores examples of shared frames of understanding that emerge relationally within a phallic economy. Secondly, it considers how these frames and other organisational norms and practices register psychically through states of unknowingness- knowingness, paranoia, anxiety and guilt at work. Finally, the thesis attempts to problematise the assumption that subjects are completely static and complicit in the reproduction of neoliberalism by reflecting on examples of counter-investments, what I term “capacities to care”, which can emerge within neoliberalism. Through the theoretical and methodological imbrication of discourse analysis and psychoanalysis, this thesis begins to map the collective constellational investments that subjects can move in and move away from under neoliberalism. ! ! ! ! 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements!.............................................................................................!2! Abstract!.................................................................................................................!5! Table of Contents!................................................................................................!6! Chapter One!.........................................................................................................!8! Introduction!...........................................................................................................!8! Chapter Two!.....................................................................................................!13! Neoliberalism and Gender Scholarship in Accounting and Finance!...........!13! Gender in accounting and finance!.......................................................................!15! Gendered histories of accounting and finance!.........................................................!15! Accountant and finance institutions as gendered and gendering!.......................!21! Embodiment and gender!..................................................................................................!30! Neoliberalism, gender, and finance and accounting!........................................!35! Neoliberalism and women as subjects par excellence!.....................................!39! Conclusion!................................................................................................................!48! Chapter Three!..................................................................................................!49! Conceptual Framework: Butler, discourse analysis and psychoanalysis!....!49! Gender performativity, melancholia, grief and non-violent action!.............!50! Gender performativity and the psychic life of power!............................................!50! Melancholia, violence, and relational ethics!.............................................................!53! Bringing together the theory of gender performativity, precarious lives and relational ethics!...................................................................................................................!59! Discourse Analysis!..................................................................................................!61! Discourse analysis approach!..........................................................................................!62! Bringing together discourse analysis and Butlerian scholarship!........................!69! Psychoanalysis and discourse analysis!...............................................................!73! Tensions between psychoanalysis and discourse analysis!...................................!73! Psychic investments: a reapproachment of discourse analysis and psychoanalysis!....................................................................................................................!77! Bringing together the ideas of non-violent action by Butler and ambivalence by psychosocial scholars!.................................................................................................!86!