Neoliberal Frame Research Articles

The Impact of Brexit on UK Food Standards and Food Security: Perspectives on the Repositioning of Neoliberal Food Policy.

Brexit, the exiting of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), has impacted socio-political relationships, both internally, and externally with other countries and economic groups. This has been especially true regarding international trade, and legal and market standards for food and food security. This paper examines how the enacting of Brexit has framed and underlined contemporary perceptions of the UK neoliberal food system, the relative importance of food standards, and the impact of policy transition on food security. Using a positional approach, perspectives and narratives within the literature are critiqued and synthesized, including academic sources, parliamentary debates, economic reports, and media analysis. The politico-economic effects of Brexit have altered food-related relationships, recalibrating trade interactions and changing the public funding that UK farmers receive. Through realigning extractive economic models, the pre-Brexit UK food system has been reset, and new perspectives about neoliberalism have emerged. Government intervention has steered away from traditional neoliberal framings towards neo-developmentalism. A dichotomy thus exists between recognizing the intrinsic right to adequate and nutritious food and maintaining existing cultural dynamics of food supply, and the use of agri-food policy as a politico-economic tool to drive higher economic growth. The implications of this policy change are stark for UK agri-food actors within food system transition post-Brexit.

Navigating Taiwan’s Bilingual 2030 Policy: Unveiling Teachers’ Glocalization Efforts and Agency

As a strategic initiative aimed to enhance English communication skills and bolster the global competitiveness of the general population, Taiwan’s Bilingual 2030 Policy takes place at the intersection of neoliberalism, globalization, and the global spread of the English language. The neoliberal framing of Taiwan’s language education policy has exerted powerful influences on teacher education, teacher hiring practices, curricular design, assessment, and other school practices. While the neoliberalist influences are prevalent among countries in the Global South, responses and resistance may take many forms embedded in specific sociocultural contexts. The reflection discussed here examines the challenges faced by teachers in Taiwan as they navigate globalization and explores the strategies they develop to balance global and local elements. We describe the perspectives of six Taiwanese teachers who strive for agency and voice, particularly in integrating global and local factors into their practices. Thematic analysis suggested teachers’ practices as a dynamic and adaptive process, while demonstrating their agency, creativity, and multilingual awareness within the complexities of language teaching in a culturally and linguistically diverse world.

The evolution of a discipline: A transformative chapter in fashion studies

This editorial reflects on the transformative trajectory of fashion studies, highlighting key developments over the past decade. Initially dismissed as a trivial field, fashion studies has evolved into a critical interdisciplinary domain, interrogating fashion’s intersections with social, cultural and economic structures. Through the lens of the International Journal of Fashion Studies, this evolution is examined across thematic trends such as decolonization, sustainability, digitalization and intersectionality. Decolonial approaches have critiqued Eurocentric frameworks, amplifying pluralistic narratives and interrogating power dynamics in global fashion systems. Digitalization, meanwhile, has reshaped the methodologies and paradigms of the discipline, examining its impact on production, consumption and representation. Sustainability remains a central concern, urging the field to navigate its complexities beyond neo-liberal framings. This editorial also reflects on interdisciplinarity as a cornerstone of fashion studies, embracing methodologies from sociology, anthropology, digital humanities and material culture studies. Fashion is no longer perceived as mere ‘surface’ but as an autonomous object of inquiry, essential for understanding identity, power and modernity. The Journal’s future lies in sustaining these critical engagements, enriching fashion’s place in global academia.

“It's not Just a Wall”: Malangatana's Zimpeto Mural and Peacebuilding in Mozambique

This study investigates the late Mozambican artist Malangatana Valente Ngwenya's mural in Zimpeto as an art object that contributed to peacebuilding in Mozambique during the devastating internal conflict known as the Sixteen Years War (1976–1992). The article draws on an interview with Malangatana Valente Ngwenya recorded while shooting the BBC TV film Homeland, the raw footage used as ethnographic material and recent interviews with the artist's sons, Mutxhini and Manguiza Ngwenya. Our sources show that the mural was more than a mere conveyor of meaning but an agent with a social biography. As such, it carried a powerful message of peacebuilding in war-torn Mozambique. We argue that Malangatana's construction of the mural was a tomada de posição (taking of position) about peace further afield than Zimpeto because of its communitarian approach, which challenges top-down, neoliberal framings of cultural activity and peacebuilding both in Mozambique and worldwide. The article opens perspectives on works that might not be art objects according to Western conventions but are embedded in complex peacebuilding activity in conflict-torn locations.

Constructions of choice in U.S. education policy discourse, 1994–2020: a corpus-assisted analysis

ABSTRACT This study uses corpus-assisted discourse analysis to investigate the way U.S. secretaries of education have discursively constructed the topic of school choice in their public speeches over the course of 27 years, spanning four presidential administrations (1994–2020). Collocation and concordance analyses reveal a series of evolving discursive constructions: a public institutional frame favoring the prevailing logic of public schooling; an overtly neoliberal frame touting free markets, consumerism, and accountability for public systems; a depoliticized and technocratic neoliberal frame emphasizing high performance; and a populist, anti-institutional frame advocating choice as an end in itself. This study demonstrates how the language of school choice can tell us much about ideological trends in education reform. In particular, the analyses reveal an erosion of concern for the publicness of public schooling in federal school choice discourse.

Stronger together: developing collaborative fortitude to challenge the narrative of individual resilience in a hostile FE sector

ABSTRACT Resilience training for Further Education (FE) managers has become an increasingly familiar aspect of management development. This paper challenges the accepted orthodoxies underpinning resilience as a ‘learnable’ skill required to succeed as a manager. In particular, it addresses the concepts of toxic positivity, growth mindset (Dweck) and Grit (Duckworth, 2017), and the limitations of psychological safety (Edmonson, 2018). Further, it questions how a neoliberal framing of work and life blames individuals for lacking personal resilience in a world that is inevitably changeable, uncertain, complex and beyond the control of any one individual. Building on the concept of ‘fortitude (Daisley, 2023), the paper presents an alternative framework for responding to professional (and personal) challenges. This framework is grounded in realism, collaboration and community and is a direct challenge to the often hidden drivers of neoliberalism. We offer a reimagining of a familiar concept; recognising the potential of using individual strengths to lead to better outcomes for a group of people. The paper concludes with proposals, such as social partnerships, to support creating a collaborative community culture in FE, and beyond. This paper and the suggestions emerge from our lived experience as leaders, researchers, teachers, and trainers in the sector.

Whitlam's Economic (Inter)Nationalism

By his own admission, Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was not much of an economist, a disclosure that has fuelled criticisms of his government's performance during the economic crises of the 1970s. By contrast, Whitlam was a self‐declared internationalist who promoted the domestic and global possibilities of the international system. Of course, twentieth‐century economics and internationalism were mutual rather than dichotomous. Accordingly, Whitlam's internationalism provides a vantage point to re‐evaluate his economics. This article focusses on how one strand of Whitlam's internationalism — his Third World sympathies and alignments — informed his government's resource policy, as designed by Minister for Minerals and Energy, Rex Connor. Rather than seeking to redeem Whitlam's economic credentials via this internationalism, however, I argue Whitlam's appeal to Third Worldism sought to infuse an anti‐economics — or, more precisely, a critique of mainstream economic thinking — into Australian resources policy. The legacies of this critique have been enduring. Whitlam and Connor's attempts to establish export controls, foreign investment regulations, and state‐owned enterprise galvanised a fierce backlash from miners and libertarian economists. This backlash has helped shape the neoliberal framing of Australian mining and energy policy over the past 40 years. At the same time, with climate change and energy transitions again illuminating the politics of natural resources, Whitlam's Third World critique remains salient.

Neoliberalizing Design and the State: The Political Origins of Australian Design Policy and Design Education Reform, 1987–1991

Abstract This article draws attention to the state involvement in national design agendas through the example of Australia’s Hawke Government, focusing on 1987 to 1991. It unearths the origins of Australian design policy and reforms to design education within an emerging neoliberal political economy in the 1980s. Drawing on gray literature, the article reveals how this was a period of intensive political rhetoric regarding design and design education, during which the government—led by the Australian Labor Party—specifically promoted the role of design in industry policy. Better design, it was hoped, could enhance the international competitiveness of Australian-made exports, thereby addressing trade imbalances and boosting manufacturing. This increasing emphasis on design occurred in a highly politicized environment and in tandem with the restructuring of Australian tertiary education (known as the “Dawkins revolution”), alongside the discursive notion of Australia as a “clever country.” In essence, this government-led politicization of design meant that Australian design was understood as operating exclusively to “meet the needs of industry,” with industrial design prioritized. While hindsight indicates that this strategy was unsuccessful in enhancing manufacturing, the legacy of this neoliberal framing of design continues to reverberate, particularly in mainstream understandings of design.

Water courses and discourses: A media content analysis of environmental water reporting in Australia

This study presents the findings of a media content analysis (n=303) of articles discussing environmental water (water allocated to the environment in freshwater systems) in the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia across 20 years (2001 – 2021). The aim of the study was to determine the disposition of the articles, the actors (voices) invoked within them, as well as the topics they discuss in relation to environmental water, with a particular emphasis on understanding the representation and power dynamics prevalent in media discourse. The analysis highlighted that negative portrayals of environmental water occurred more often than those that were positive in nature. This led to a lack of balance in representation in heralding certain views, such as pro environmental, over others, such an economic arguments. Notably, Indigenous voices were given almost no representation across the analysed articles, while settler colonial voices such as Irrigators and Irrigator Lobby Groups were provided with a disproportionately larger share of discussion, driving the anti-environmental water disposition. This is notable as it serves to sway debate towards certain views and conceptualisations such as an economic valuing of environmental water. As such, environmental water is often discussed in the context of the economy and livelihoods of communities. There is a notable absence of discussions of climate change and cultural water in the debate, with zero mentions of either across all surveyed articles. This is surprising considering climate change is expected to reduce water availability across the basin by 20% in years to come. Water discussed as a commodity was regularly featured in discussion, which lends itself to understanding the wider policy debate nestled in neoliberal framings, rather than other valuations of water, such as environmentalist or Indigenous understandings. This has wider implications for other countries that are considering policy options for allocating environmental water and how a market-driven approach to water allocation serves to sway public discourse.

Framing bilingual parenting as market advantage: the neoliberal discourses of ‘grassroots’ media

ABSTRACT Little research has examined media dimensions of family language policy. This project addresses this gap by analysing marketing efforts targeted at media consumers seeking ‘grassroots’ advice on bilingual parenting. Here, we refer to ‘grassroots media marketing’ as purposeful attempts to target, inform or persuade a niche demographic with ‘grassroots’-style media methods and tools. We did Google Searches to identify 40 high-profile corporate media, non-profit, and independent bilingual parenting blogs written for Spanish- and for English-language readers. We found English- and Spanish-language keyword searches generated distinct blog-style texts (i.e. advice sites). While English-language searches were more likely to generate returns from small-owned blogs, Spanish-language searches tended to yield corporate news and non-profit sites. Frame analysis of multimodal media blog content revealed gaps and contradictions regarding how bilingual parenting in the U.S is portrayed in Spanish and in English, as well as a neoliberal framing across texts. We describe three neoliberal ideologies: (1) ‘bilingual parenting as individual choice’, (2) ‘bilingual parenting as competitive edge’, and (3) ‘bilingual parents as consumers’. Analysis reveals that documented racist, anti-immigrant discourses widely circulating in U.S. society are absent from these neoliberal framings, resulting in public contradictions of what it means to be a ‘good’ bilingual parent.

Expanding the public space through art. A conversation with Pablo Helguera

Pablo Helguera (Mexico City, 1971) is a New York based artist working with installation, sculpture, photography, drawing, socially engaged art and performance. Helguera’s work focuses in a variety of topics ranging from history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics, ethnography, memory and the absurd, in formats that are widely varied including the lecture, museum display strategies, musical performances and written fiction. His work as an educator has usually intersected his interest as an artist. This intersection is best exemplified in his project, The School of Panamerican Unrest (2003–2006), a nomadic think-tank that physically crossed the American continent by car from Anchorage, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, making 40 stops in between. Covering almost 20,000 miles, it is considered one of the most extensive public art projects on record as well as a pioneering work for the new generation of artworks regarded under the area of socially engaged art. The contribution, in the form of a conversation, will retrace Helguera’s work to focus on questions of publicness, art and participation in a moment in which socially engaged practices are increasingly established in the contemporary art realm. By articulating the artist’s strategies and operating methodologies, the aim is to shed light on ways in which art can contribute to widen the public discourse on the social and political life and create accessible spaces of meeting, confrontation and dialogue, in which a counter- narrative to the dominant neoliberal frame work can take place.

The halted neoliberalising of public schools: policy trajectories of two ‘failed’ privatisation reforms in South Korea and China

ABSTRACT This paper investigates and compares the policy trajectories of two halted privatisation reforms – autonomous private high schools in South Korea (2002–2019) and converted schools in China (1992–2008). The two reforms, ambitiously announced, were put under scrutiny and ultimately halted, when the public discontent about education inequalities was widely expressed. We particularly focus on the profound entanglement between neoliberal forces and contextual specificities, and their conjoint influences on the two reforms. The non-linear trajectories are explained through their reified embrace of neoliberal discourses and strategies, deep-rooted ideologies, political systems, and legitimisation derived from the shared Confucian ideals of ‘benevolent governance’ and social stability. This paper argues that, in these contexts, the verb form ‘neoliberalising’ better captures the dynamics and openness of privatisation reforms and renders nuanced understandings beyond the currently dominant neoliberal frames of reference.

International Students as Sources of Income? Moving Beyond the Neoliberal Framing of Internationalization

This paper focuses on international student mobility and the funding of higher education. We theorize that relying on international students for funding is stronger for institutions in developed English-speaking countries because they more often adopt marketization practices. Compared to Northern and Southern European countries, we find that they had the largest decrease in public funding and largest increase in private funding. The relative number of international students has also increased for English-speaking countries, but not for other country groupings. Furthermore, we found associations between public/private funding and international student enrollments, but these patterns were not uniform. These results show that a decrease in public funding and a reliance on international students as a source of income is not equally important everywhere. This opens new avenues for research on the marketization of higher education, including the role that differences between cultures and types of governments play in shaping international student mobility.

Seeing like the state? Customary land pressures and fracturing tenure systems in rural Zambia

This paper explores mechanisms that render different state actors capable of exerting customary land pressures, land grabbing or facilitating conditions for doing so. Specifically, the paper examines provisions state actors rely upon in the acquisition of rural customary land and implications. Using the test case of a rural district of Mafinga in eastern Zambia, we collect qualitative data from policy analysis, multi-level semi-structured interviews, and group discussions with local actors. Results show that land conversion has been heightened by creation of new districts across the country, which has advanced an urgent need to open up rural lands. Whereas chiefs have been co-opted into councils as agents of development, winners are not always local. Land acquisition processes reveal state actors are active ‘land grabbers,’ all calculating, and all-seeing in acquiring and converting customary land to statutory land, drawing on multi-dimensional and multi-level elements to exert pressure on customary land spheres. Several policy and legal tools, formal and informal processes enable and are increasing relied upon by state actors to grab land – processes framed as development. Ultimately, this effectively shifts risks and burdens of neoliberal framings of development to rural customary spheres. Overall, this paper sets us to think about state’s power, influence and authority in driving land conversions and in fracturing tenure systems, which raise the need to strengthen informal capacities at local level.

Public Music Theory’s Neoliberal Learning Outcomes

Recent years have seen a growing interest in integrating “public music theory” (PMT) into the classroom. While proponents argue that PMT-related class projects enhance traditional learning outcomes, some advocate for PMT assignments that focus explicitly on job training, thus aligning the learning outcomes of the music theory class with those of music entrepreneurship programs—students learn to “market themselves, fundraise, and interact with the broader public beyond traditional concert performances” (Belcher and Grant 2019). We argue that such discourse reflects a neoliberal frame that encourages a marketized view of music theory pedagogy—how music theory mastery can be sold to our students as a boost to their careers. PMT, with its emphasis on practical skills and interaction with a (potentially paying) public, is particularly susceptible to this framing. Building on Moore’s (2016) critique of musical entrepreneurship programs and Ritchey’s (2019) examination of neoliberalism’s effects on classical music, we analyze the role neoliberal values play in theorists’ decisions to bring PMT into the classroom and publish PMT themselves. We elucidate the neoliberal frame in several examples drawn from our own teaching experiences and from others. In our critique, we identify covert learning outcomes promoting a neoliberal perspective and engage with the following questions: How are music theory faculty, like all university instructors, under a particular “pressure to embody and transmit the values of power” (Bousquet 2008, 93)? And, in light of this pressure, how can we negotiate differences between our economic realities and societal ideals in our teaching?

American Girl Dolls as Professionals

American Girl Dolls as Professionals

Vulnerability in context; hard numbers, tricky words and grey areas for gerontology

Vulnerability in context; hard numbers, tricky words and grey areas for gerontology

The Predatory Rhetorics of Urban Development

AbstractIn this article, we reflect on the pernicious nature of rhetoric aimed at soliciting Black community support for predatory urban development schemes. Highlighting recent examples of Urban One Casino + Resort’s development campaign in Richmond, Virginia, and the messaging leveraged by political leaders on behalf of SoFi stadium and the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, we find that discursive moves made by public and private stakeholders reflect what we call the “predatory rhetorics of urban development.” We argue that these rhetorics intend to enlist divested Black communities as supporters of development projects that concentrate wealth and power in the hands of economic and political elites. They do so by playing on Black desires for social and economic inclusion into American middle-class community life. Four common threads of predatory rhetoric appear across both contexts. They are 1) seizing the real needs and concerns of stigmatized places, 2) relying on representational politics to mitigate issues of trust, 3) the neoliberal framing of American internal colonization as a problem that requires extractive private development solutions and, finally, 4) dissimulating intra-community class interests to consolidate “Black needs.” We reflect on the outcomes supported by these rhetorics across both development projects and raise several points of further consideration as we hope for more organized responses to such rhetorics in the future.

The invention of the social economy in France and Europe, an unstable institutional compromise

The social economy is an uncertain notion, which must be understand diachronically and institutionally. We propose to study its construction both in France and in Europe, first its « reinvention » with the crisis of the welfare state and the integration of the Single Market, then its testing against the neoliberal frame of reference, whose legal-institutional approach the social enterprise challenges.

Framing the Future: The Foundation Series, Foundation Models and Framing AI

Are we at risk of preserving in digital aspic current hegemonic ways of doing, talking and thinking about law and economy? Our dominant frames are those of neoclassical economics and doctrinal law, which, combined, align with neoliberal assumptions and preferences. Invisible through their ubiquity, these partially reveal and conceal problems and solutions, perpetuating inequalities. And yet, unlike social biases, our framing tends to fly largely under the radar, as we see in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. Taking three themes from Asimov’s work that align with current hegemonic frames, namely the centrality of the individual as the subject, a belief in scientism and technological progress to save humanity, and a dissatisfaction with the limitations of language, this paper explores what, how and why we might exercise caution in the development of natural language processing (NLP) artificial intelligence (AI). By drawing parallels with Asimov’s work and the development of foundation models that underpin all NLP AI systems, this paper asks to what extent neoliberal framing and the inequalities perpetuated therein might come to be embedded in future technologies.