“I’m not the only victim…” student perceptions of exploitative supervision relation in doctoral degree

Drawing on a five-ethical principles framework, this study examines how the thirteen recruited doctoral students across disciplines in Hong Kong interpret the idea of and experience “exploitative supervision”. Findings reveal that doctoral students’ lived experiences of exploitation are expressed in five different themes: autonomy exploitation, justice exploitation, fidelity exploitation, beneficent exploitation, and non-maleficence exploitation. The phenomenon was scaffolded through a Foucauldian perspective on power relations. Varied understandings of academic exploitation among doctoral students point to an urgent need to take reference from the employment and labor law to outline the fundamental rights of doctoral students, set up a probation period for the matching of supervisor-supervisee, and establish a higher-level independent inquiry to handle academic exploitation.