Under current conditions of capitalism, neoliberalism has proven to be much more than an economic policy, becoming entrenched as a global ideology and a form of governance, and extending the logic of the market to all spheres... [ view full abstract ]
Under current conditions of capitalism, neoliberalism has proven to be much more than an economic policy, becoming entrenched as a global ideology and a form of governance, and extending the logic of the market to all spheres of social and individual life, education, language and urban space. Thus, globalisation, free markets, deregulation, flexibility and competition are principles that now govern education, work, human rights, culture, media, urban planning, migration, public administration, security and health. Undoubtedly, they also affect language policies and language users’ life trajectories and practices.
Without underestimating how languages are ingrained in neoliberal economies, and the correlative central role they play in the economy of late modern societies, the issues to be explored in this panel are:
- what makes it possible for the language dimension to be colonised by neoliberal principles, and to what extent those principles organise speakers’ trajectories and practices;
- how neoliberalism has become, in consequence, a practice of governance in the lives of individuals and the population as a whole, and to what extent language is involved and plays a significant role in these practices of governance.
In order to address these two aims, contributions to this panel will focus, firstly, on the production of a neoliberal rationality, which shapes our understanding of languages, skills and competences, speakers and models of speakerhood, today, within different social fields, such as education or the labour market, and affecting different social classes and ethnic groups. In addition, contributions will focus on the extent to which the expansion and naturalisation of a neoliberal rationality is changing the forms of subjectivity, creating neoliberal subjects who are simultaneously neoliberal speakers, who train and prepare themselves to accumulate language skills and capital in order to survive in a world of competition, life-long education and the drive for increased productivity.
