Neoliberal Self Research Articles

A Sentimental Android? M3GAN (2022) and Monstrous Doubling as a Negotiation of the Gendered Neo-Liberal Self

A Sentimental Android? M3GAN (2022) and Monstrous Doubling as a Negotiation of the Gendered Neo-Liberal Self

In between lived life and a social policy agenda: the Global South social question from the inside (Brazil)

This article aims to demonstrate how gender, class, and race are intertwined at the micro level, addressing the interaction of lived life and social policy, through biographical interviews, in Brazil. Less interested in the analysis of inequalities per se, this article focuses on the way black, elderly, poor, female heads of families, living in urban neighbourhoods, manage to subjectively resignify objective domination. The in-depth biographical approach reveals the (re)construction of their subjectivity, defining personal sacrifice as a form of protagonism (agency) and empowerment. This process of resignification occurs by exchanging the unit of experience they relate to, from the individual to the family unit. It engages with social policies (social assistance, public health, and social housing) implemented by the latest Labour Party’s term of office (2003–2016). These policies are based on the role of women as responsible for the family unit. The focus on subjectivity, in different Brazilian metropoles, challenges the production of conformed neoliberal selves, in this case of women, within a specific Global South context, marked by historically high levels of inequality and informal work, since the formal end of slavery.

From Service to Solidarity: On the (Im)Possibilities of Liberative Service-Learning

In this paper I argue that service-learning should be understood as an invitation to solidarity. After reviewing critiques of “traditional” and “critical” service-learning, I provide a description of solidarity as formulated in the work of Peter Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, Paulo Freire, and Pope Francis. This description describes solidarity as developing authentic relationships that emerge via experiences of encounter, perdure over time, and entail both risk and love while pursuing social justice and mutual flourishing. Such solidarity requires, in the words of Keri Day, the “undoing” of our neoliberal selves and new, unpredictable moral formations in the context of authentic relationships.

The making of ‘China’s’ first skiing princess: Neo-liberal feminism and nationalism in Eileen Gu’s online presence during the 2022 Winter Olympics

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics birthed a cultural phenomenon in China: Eileen Gu, an 18-year-old half-white, half-Chinese ‘skiing genius’ who left the United States to join team China. In this article, I explore the ways in which Gu’s online presence informs understandings about class, women, race, ‘Chineseness’ and the complex entanglement of the neo-liberal self and collective nation. First, I provide an introduction to sports nationalism and neo-liberal feminism to situate Gu in the post-socialist neo-liberal Chinese context. Then, I turn to Gu’s social media posts, self-made videos and online commercials during the Winter Olympics. I argue that Gu is presented within (1) a neo-liberal feminist moment characterized by individual empowerment and (2) a nationalist and cosmopolitan moment framed by the national pride towards her and her self-framing of a flexible citizenship and ‘apolitical Chineseness’. I conclude that the ‘Eileen Phenomenon’ is an illustrative instance of the shifting demarcations in a global political economic field, in which a desirable Chinese identity and a marketable femininity are both crucial for the Chinese state under globalization. Gu’s case shows that the interplay and contradiction of the neo-liberal self and the nationalist collective continue to play out in contemporary Chinese culture and society.

Men Who Wear Make-up: Young Korean Men’s Masculinity Management in the Neoliberal Korea

Scholars have debated whether hybrid masculinities perpetuate or challenge male dominance and power. This study advances such dialogue by unveiling the kernel of hybrid masculinities through careful examination of young Korean men’s narratives on how to manage appearance and dressing up, especially on wearing make-up. Findings suggest that young men narrate three approaches, namely, expressive, instrumental, and meritocratic, as a means to explain their perspectives on such practices. A close look into their statements on the rationales of dressing-up and wearing make-up—seemingly a social act of hybrid masculinities—shows that such behaviors are pathways to fortify masculine power whose roots intersect with the local socioeconomic structure. This study theoretically contributes to unveiling how the basis of male dominance and power intersects with the normative and pervasive ideal of the neoliberal self, suggesting traditional masculinities are concealed in the complex indigenous assemblage of neoliberalism and lookism.

Self, Consciousness and Neo-Idealism: exploring critical alternatives to the materialist paradigm in the promotion of mental health in higher education

Concerns about the deteriorating mental health of university students have been researched and documented over the last few decades, and there is some evidence of an intensification of the problems as a result of the recent Covid pandemic and resulting lockdowns. The central thesis of this paper is that all such mental health problems are exacerbated by a dominant hegemonic culture of materialism which – supported and reinforced by the culture of neoliberalism – celebrates a reified conception of a solitary self divorced from the social networks which provide the conditions for psychological nourishment and mind/body wellbeing. In order to challenge such a potentially harmful culture, a process of ‘unselfing’ through a critique of the metaphysical materialism which underpins the current orthodoxy is proposed alongside a set of strategies drawn from Buddhist principles which seek to uncover the delusions which serve to bolster the neoliberal self. In conclusion, a number of changes are recommended in the form of a critical dimension which may be incorporated into learning programmes at all levels in higher education institutions with a view to enhancing mind/body wellbeing.

Role of multilingualism in the construction of social identity in a high social class family

This article explores the language ideologies and language practices of a multilingual, high socioeconomic status family, resident in the United Kingdom, from a critical sociolinguistic perspective (Heller, Pietikäinen and Pujolar, 2018). Drawn from a larger, longitudinal, multi-sited ethnographic study, it focuses on a predominantly Russian/British family of high socioeconomic status. The study concentrates on their daily rituals. Socialization moments are revealed, and the mechanisms and underpinning ideologies are analysed, drawing upon the approach of Goffman (1956). It explores how their language ideologies and practices may be deemed constitutive of a neoliberal self (Urciuoli, 2008), and how they create and present a cosmopolitan class identity. It makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating how ethnographic participant observation is valuable in FLP research. Such an approach enables an understanding of which ideologies are actually enacted through which practices in the face of acceptance, resistance or conflicting ideologies from other family members, and the other constraints of daily life.

Resisting Neoliberal Subjectivities: Friendship Groups in Popular Music

The pedagogical strategy of students choosing their own friends with whom to work in classroom contexts (under the guise of democratic participation) because this is how popular musicians learn, has mostly gone uninterrogated in the literature. Approaching the question of how to create a common world through a critical examination of the unexamined assumptions that underpin emerging celebratory discourses on friendship, I consider the ways in which the words friends and friendship are indiscriminately used without acknowledging that the soundness of this pedagogical choice is based on data collected from people (‘real life’ popular musicians) who are in, more often than not, instrumental relations of utility. In doing so I call for a rereading of friendship groups in order to resist the neoliberal injunction of self-interest, a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and unchecked individualism. To that end I question the ways in which friendship groups in popular music groupings have become sites for developing and perfecting the neoliberal self.

The affective-discursive ‘pruning’ of neoliberal selves: introducing the notion of self-othering

In this article, I develop the notion of self-othering defined as the affective orchestration of different voices-of-the-self as an important self-constitutive practice of neoliberal subjectivity. I posit that neoliberal subjectification relies on othering those facets—skills, attributes, bodily properties—that do not conform to idealised notions of the self. By applying this conceptual lens to empirical material drawn from a qualitative research project on women’s identity negotiations, my aim is to show that affect, notably what feels right/wrong, plays a crucial role in aligning the body with neoliberal culture. The affective-discursive approach to analysing the dialogical self I propose is based on a problematisation of neoliberal logic and thus draws attention to the normativity of affect. The analysis of practices of self-othering lays bare how certain voices and ways of being become unsayable. However, their presence in people’s self-constructions also suggests that they could be re-articulated to formulate a counter ideal.

Becoming a researching subject in the era of neoliberalism: Toward a theory of ethics

AbstractThis study interrogates the influences of neoliberalism on applied linguistics research by engaging in critical reflections on my researcher subjectivity. Drawing on a longitudinal study of marginalized teenagers in South Korea, I examine how neoliberal forces have acted upon me as a subject and how I have maneuvered the neoliberal academic field. As I narrate and name my struggles that have originated from the ascendancy of neoliberalism, I show how I take up, reproduce, and withstand my neoliberal self. The inseparable link between neoliberalism and researcher subjectivity ultimately points to a theory of ethics—as a way to address not simply how to resist the forces of neoliberalism, but what kind of subjects we might want to become under the reign of neoliberalism.

‘One internship, two internships, three internships … more!’: exploring the culture of the multiple internship economy

ABSTRACT Internships are increasingly promoted as a high impact practice to improve students’ post-graduation employment outcomes, and educators often encourage students to participate in multiple internships. Yet, there is a lack of research on the sociocultural contexts associated with multiple internship participation. We present findings about the culture of multiple internship participation – drawing on focus groups and one-year follow-up interviews with students at five colleges in the United States, along with interviews with their educators and an analysis of online documents about multiple internship participation. The evidence documents a particular culture of the multiple internship economy, representing multiple internships as a linear, progressive, goal-oriented cultural project to accumulate a marketable self; also described by anthropologists as a neoliberal conception of the self. This cultural conception of a marketable neoliberal self is comprised of signs – such as narratives of multiple internships – that provide evidence of skills and experiences, of persevering through obstacles, and of ‘hustle’ and a ‘do what it takes’ attitude, which can be deployed to navigate competitive gatekeeping encounters such as employment interviews. Based on these findings, we develop a sociocultural theory of multiple internship participation as a project of neoliberal gatekeeping navigation.

Journalism ‘fixers’, hyper-precarity and the violence of the entrepreneurial self

The figure of the so-called journalism ‘fixer’ has received overdue academic attention in recent years. Scholars have highlighted the role played by fixers in international news reporting, a role historically obscured in the mythos of the Western foreign correspondent. Recent research has produced useful insights about the work done by fixers in ‘the shadows’ of the international news economy. However, it has also tended towards a domestication of the role, where the local ‘fixer’ finds their place in a collaborative relationship with those officially consecrated as ‘journalists’ from elsewhere. This article presents a critical theoretical analysis of this functional role, building on the image of the fixer as a kind of ‘entrepreneur’. Rather than interpreting the latter designation as a source of empowerment or agency, we approach it as a euphemism for the hyper-precarious and exploitative underpinnings of fixer-labour. Our argument draws on different theoretical sources, including Foucault-inspired work on the entrepreneurial rationality of the neoliberal self, Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence, and Rancière’s concept of politics. The theoretical argument is supported by the first author’s reflections of working as a Pakistani-based ‘fixer’ during the U.S-led war on terror.

“The future is in your hands”: temporality and the neoliberal self in the czech voucher privatization

ABSTRACT The Czech voucher privatization was a method of giving out state property to the population, mobilizing the majority of citizens, but also giving incentives for the founding of investment funds, which commissioned unprecedented marketing campaigns to divert shares from individuals, somewhat overshadowing the first efforts of the state to make everyone an investor. Examining the “first wave” in 1992, this paper argues that the voucher privatization was an attempt at not just an economic, but also a moral transformation, bidding to turn postsocialist people into neoliberal subjects, while framing this change as a return to normality. It analyses various sources of public economics, advertising and mass journalism. The paper thus goes beyond the existing historiography to show that voucher privatization gained popular support because of its promise that people would become the active creators of their own future. It also exhibits the relevance of the memory of state socialism for the popular sense-making of the endeavour to privatize – both for its legitimation and scepticism towards it. The attempt to make people into neoliberal subjects by means of “democratic capitalism” ultimately reinstituted the hierarchy between economic elites and lay citizens, as the very idea of creating a citizen-investor remained only short-lived.

Coloniality and Psychology: From Silencing to Re-Centering Marginalized Voices in Postcolonial Times

We adopt a decolonizing framework in this article to examine how legacies of colonialism and coloniality continue to manifest in Euro-American psychology. The population of India is now over 1.2 billion people with over 356 million youth they make up the world’s largest youth population, but their stories remain largely invisible in Euro-American psychology. For this article, we draw on a growing body of research by decolonial theorists and our ethnographic research. We argue that Euro-American psychological science now reworks the old forms of imperialism and domination in neoliberal contexts of globalization. In particular, we analyze (a) how mainstream psychological knowledge of “culture” and “diversity” have reinforced a neoliberal self in postcolonial India; (b) the varied ways in which identities, values, and mental health experiences of marginalized communities have been silenced and ignored through the application of Euro-American psychiatric and colonial psychological knowledge; and (c) how persistent caste-based violence and exploitation in contemporary times reflects the “internal coloniality” of Indian society.

Enacting multilingual entrepreneurship: an ethnography of Myanmar university students learning Chinese as an international language

ABSTRACT Drawn on the notion of linguistic entrepreneurship (De Costa, P., Park, J. S., & Wee, L. (2016). Language learning as linguistic entrepreneurship: Implications for language education. Asia-Pacific Education Research, 25(5–6), 695–702, De Costa, P., Park, J. S., & Wee, L. (2019). Linguistic entrepreneurship as affective regime: Organisations, audit culture, and second/foreign language education policy. Language Policy, 18(3), 387–406, De Costa, P., Park, J. S., & Wee, L. (2021). Why linguistic entrepreneurship? Multilingua), this study extends the field of inquiry of neoliberal language learning by exploring Chinese as an international language. Based on a large-scale ethnography of Myanmar university students in China conducted between September 2013 and July 2017, this paper reports on a qualitative inquiry on how the neoliberal discourse permeates Myanmar students’ language exploitation to enhance their worth and maximise their opportunities. Findings show that Chinese learning constitutes the formation of a neoliberal self through the valorisation of multilingual competence. However, the study demonstrates that the enactment of multilingual entrepreneurship only values certain languages, which aligns with the neoliberal logic of convertibility for the China-and-Myanmar communication market. The study also reveals that access to entrepreneurial ambitions through Chinese learning opportunities is largely constrained by citizenship status, socioeconomic conditions, and the fast-evolving demands of linguistic markets within and across national boundaries. The study concludes with some implications for language policy and language education.

English and Chinese language ideologies among Vietnamese students in Taiwan: the construction of an ideal neoliberal self

ABSTRACT This article examines English and Chinese language ideologies among Vietnamese students in Taiwan, focusing on their beliefs about the value or benefits of the languages and their self-construction as reflected in these beliefs. Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with students of English-medium programs in Taiwanese universities. The students suggested a number of benefits of English and Mandarin Chinese, thereby associating the languages with human capital and/or marketable commodities. In that process, they may be relating their personhood to an ideal neoliberal self – the person who possesses the capital and commodities valued by the market. The ideal neoliberal self as imagined by the students, however, is not necessarily a comprehensive image for them to construct and not necessarily connected with their future actual self. It is also suggested that in addition to English, competence in another powerful language such as Chinese is a strong plus for individuals to be more employable and competitive.

The cultural politics of new Tibetan entrepreneurship in contemporary China: Valorisation and the question of neoliberalism

AbstractOver the past decade, new forms of Tibetan entrepreneurship have emerged and proliferated in China, at the intersection of a national push for entrepreneurship in response to a slowing economy, the closure of non‐governmental organisations in Tibetan areas, declining state‐sector employment, and state concerns about stability. This paper explores the rise of these new Tibetan entrepreneurs in relation to two inter‐related concerns. First, it contributes to geographers’ calls for comparative studies of culturally specific meanings of entrepreneurship across the Global South. It explores the cultural politics of Tibetan entrepreneurship – active debates about what it means to be a proper Tibetan, in terms of religious commitments and cultural pride, in relation to money‐making activities. Second, it analyses these in relation to critiques of neoliberal subjectivities associated with entrepreneurship. One of the key themes of Tibetan entrepreneurship is the effort to create economic value in the service of cultural value and a sense of self‐worth for Tibetans living in rural areas. Thus, elements of the neoliberal self are sutured together with a sense of responsibility to Tibetan communities and historically sedimented idioms to form an entrepreneurial subjectivity that is broadly oriented to the project of revalorising Tibetan places and people.

Bonding Together like a Family: Self‐development within an Affective Community among Elite College Students in South Korea

AbstractWith the advance of globalization and neoliberalism, the discourse of self‐development that promotes a neoliberal vision of self figures large in the lives of college students in South Korea. Based on ethnographic research in an undergraduate business club at a prestigious university in South Korea, I explore how a neoliberal ideal of self‐development is practiced and embodied by these elite students. Specifically, I examine how they develop a unique way to promote self‐development through the mobilization of family metaphors and affective bonds within club teams. Self‐development pursued in a familial team leads them not only to reconstruct meanings of autonomy and self‐management but also to learn the significance of an affective community. By illustrating an unlikely coalition between neoliberal selfhood and familial affect, my findings point to the emergence of a profoundly relational self as a result of the reconfiguration of the neoliberal ideal in specific sociocultural and relational contexts. [neoliberal self, self‐development, affective community, familism, college students, South Korea]Abstract in Korean본 논문은 한 명문 대학교의 경영 동아리에 대한 민족지적 연구를 토대로, 명문대 학생들이 신자유주의적인 자기계발을 어떻게 토착화하여 해석하고 실천하고 있는지에 주목한다. 구체적으로 학생들이 하나의 팀을 가족에 비유하여 끈끈한 유대를 형성함으로써 자기계발을 도모하는 독특한 실천 방식을 탐구한다. 가족적인 팀에서 이루어지는 자기계발의 실천을 통해 학생들은 신자유주의적인 담론에서 요구하는 자율성과 자기관리의 의미를 새롭게 구성하고, 보살핌과 유대의 중요성에 대해 배운다. 본 연구는 신자유주의적 자기계발이 가족 비유 및 가족애적 정서와 역설적으로 결합하는 모습을 보여줌으로써, 신자유주의적인 자아상에 대한 추구가 구체적인 사회문화적 맥락에서 재구성되며 오히려 지극히 관계적인 자아를 빚어내는 모습을 포착한다.

Eating, looking, and living clean: Techniques of white femininity in contemporary neoliberal food culture

AbstractThis article contributes to Gender Work and Organization's Special Themed Section on Foodwork, by addressing the intersections of race, gender, and class in representations of labor, whiteness, and neoliberalism in popular and digital food cultures. The discussion responds to the journal's call for papers by examining the clean eating trend as a vehicle for the ideals of white femininity, and the techniques of femininity that are employed to convey messages of normalcy and exceptionalism in this contemporary popular food culture. In the analysis of an article in the high‐end home interiors magazine, Elle Decoration, the visual authoritativeness of clean eating advocates is considered to highlight the strategies and devices used to deploy ideals of white femininity and to create boundaries around a remodeled white female neoliberal self. The article aims to advance current debates regarding digital foodwork, by examining the esthetics of whiteness that are contained within the message of relatability communicated by social media food influencers. Thus, in keeping with the broader concerns of the journal, the article addresses developments in the fields of gender and digital labor, with respect to the overwhelming dominance of privileged white women in this sphere and the esthetics of their labor, which has thus far received limited attention within existing debates.

Troublesome Knowledge: Autotheory in the Queer Classroom

Troublesome Knowledge:Autotheory in the Queer Classroom Shannon Brennan (bio) "On the eve of finishing this essay my attention is focused not on how to rework the conclusion (as it should be) but instead on news stories of alleged racism at Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC)."1 So begins CATHY COHEN'S influential essay, "Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?" COHEN'S opening salvo attunes the reader to the urgency of her project and draws into the political present the act of writing: the "rework[ing] [of] the conclusion." Present on the surface of the text are COHEN'S "attention," her "mixed emotions," and the recursive process of revision. Such moves constitute what readers of this special issue might recognize as an "autotheoretical" gesture. In a turn that's also typical of the genre, what Cohen performatively frames as a "distraction" from her work is not a diversion at all but instead exemplifies her argument's necessity. The story she tells shows a failure of LGBTQ+ organizations to conceive of politics intersectionally, while it also "highlights the limits of a lesbian and gay political agenda based on a civil rights strategy, where assimilation into, and replication of, dominant institutions [End Page 707] are the goals."2 Cohen advocates for a reconceptualization of the meaning of "queer"—not as a static identity marker but as the basis for a politics built on shared relationships to power. Two decades on, Cohen is still "rework[ing] the conclusion." While optimistic about the intersectional work of the Movement for Black Lives, Cohen notes how LGBTQ+ politics has refused "Punks's" intervention.3 Instead, the loudest mainstream LGBTQ+ voices continue to invest in presumptively stable identity categories, the security of which is expressed in well-meaning bromides such as the claim to having been "born this way" or tautologies like "love is love." They invest, that is, not in the radical "identity politics" articulated by the Combahee River Collective, which emphasized the "synthesis of [interlocking] oppressions" on axes of race, gender, sexuality.4 Instead, much contemporary LGBTQ+ discourse emphasizes a putative "identity politics" that is single-axis (rather than intersectional), consumerist (rather than radically politicized), individual (rather than collective), liberal (rather than radical), and organized around securing the identitarian platform from which a self can seek representation and redress rather than investigating the wily question of power's operation in our connected biopolitical, necropolitical existence. These two impulses—toward single-axis identitarian commitments and toward more dynamic conceptions of the subject—are both potentiated in autotheory, a genre in which the self, in its body and in all its particularity, is staged on the page as an object of, vessel for, or method of doing philosophy. Whether autotheory ultimately reifies the neoliberal self as expressed through identitarian taxonomies isn't really the point; the question of the self's reification is always there—implicitly or explicitly. My aim is not so much to offer a political analysis of the works of autotheory that exist but to examine the works of autotheory that might be—the works of autotheory that undergraduate students produce (to personalize: the works that my undergraduate students produce) as they work through what, in the language of constructivist pedagogy, we might call queer theory's "troublesome" knowledge practices.5 What are the uses of autotheory as a pedagogical tool? Given the genre's feminist, queer, queer of color, and trans genealogy, I wish to consider its use as a tool for learning and, more, for "doing" queer theory—for [End Page 708] doing queer theory as Cohen and other QPOC scholars define it, I mean: recognizing and theorizing one's positionality in relation to power and in relation to potential coalitions of care, activism, and resistance.6 To what degree does the production of this genre of writing enable students to cross the threshold—as educational theorists Jan Meyer and Ray Land would put it—into the transformative ways of thinking that queer theory (and its cognate fields: women's and gender studies, trans studies, ethnic studies) looks to enable?7 It's a gnarly question, for contemporary autotheory, like contemporary queer theory, is positioned at...