Gender, Foreignness and Academia: An Intersectional Analysis of the Experiences of Foreign Women Academics in UK Business Schools

This article explores the experiences of a growing but hitherto under-researched category of academics employed within UK higher education: women of non-UK origin. Drawing on an intersectional approach, we examine how gender and foreignness act as dynamic, interrelating categories in producing particular subjectivities in the context of UK business schools. We employ a qualitative methodology based on narrative interviews with 31 foreign women academics. In the analysis, we outline the broader global forces that have shaped their trajectories in choosing the UK as their destination, and the place of gender and foreignness in the participants' narratives of their experience. Our findings point to how the discourse of internationalization conceals intra-categorical differences among non-national staff, further supported by a merit-based system that promotes an individualized view. However, participants' narratives provide examples of how gender and foreignness are mobilized in different ways by different actors ? including themselves ? in the production of social locations. As such, the paper contributes to critical debates regarding the academic workplace and the changing conditions of UK academia.