Paying for Success 'outside your world': antagonising neoliberal higher education

Livesey, Louise ORCID: 0000-0003-4571-8676 (2019) Paying for Success 'outside your world': antagonising neoliberal higher education. In: Interrogating the Neoliberal Lifecycle: The Limits of Success. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 97-126. ISBN 9783030007690

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Abstract

This Chapter builds three inter-related arguments about the impacts of neoliberalism within higher education on those (of us) within it and on the society it claims to serve. Firstly, the specific contemporary formations of neoliberalism did not arise as a tabula rasa in the late 1970s and early 1980s but rather rely on and are deeply entwined with entrenched conservative social positions (whilst claiming not to be). This neoliberal-conservative nexus maintains particular (and familiar) power arrangements and governs how we fit, or don’t, within neoliberal institutions, focusing on higher education institutions. Arising from this, is the second argument that neoliberalism is a form of antagonistic politics which actually relies on systemic eradication of difference from an expected and idealised “fitting body”. This systemic eradication is masked within contemporary institutions by ontological claims as to why the familiar power arrangements persist and why creating greater equality would be detrimental, both laying claim to ‘common sense’ as the foundation of its arguments. Finally, this piece will further assess the impact of neoliberalism, and the price paid, in terms of how we come to understand ourselves and negotiate relationships where we are both subject to and object of neoliberalism. Higher education, sees the neoliberalisation of the self in action, institutionally instilling its preconditions and collectively those within it are collusive in the forms of acceptance or resignation (rather than resistance). However, overlooked in previous discussions of resistance is discussion of the affective work demanded to maintain contradictory ways of existing inherent in the neoliberal university particularly that demanded of those who are “Othered” by not meeting the idealised “fitting body”.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	neoliberalism; higher education; feminism; critical theory; education; politics;
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science > JC Political theory L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Research Priority Areas:	Place, Environment and Community
Depositing User:	Louise Livesey
Date Deposited:	27 Apr 2018 12:21
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2023 08:24
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/5584

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