ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades, far-reaching changes in doctoral education have led to growing interest in the conditions that concern this level of study. Doctoral studies are no longer primarily a matter of disciplinary stewardship or reproduction of the academy. Instead, doctoral practice has become a distributed and complex space, in which different interests both conflate and conflict (Lee and Boud, 2009). This intricacy of powers can be found in transdisciplinary partnerships with professional and industry bodies, as well as in the increasing emphasis on policy-driven and strategic research, which combine to restrict academic freedom. Lee and Boud (2009, p. 22) conclude that:
Far from being the essentially private activity of individuals within the enclosed spheres of disciplines and departments, the doctorate is now the much more complex and public site of practices of governance, regulation and planning, as well as of research itself, the educative work of supervision and teaching and the activities and experiences of candidature.
