Economic subjectivities in higher education: Self, policy and practice in the knowledge economy

In the macro-narratives of educational and economic discourse, higher education is 'big business' - a key sector in the global knowledge economy, and a major export industry in the national economies of Anglophone countries. As universities engage in competition for students, resources and rankings, the everyday activities and subjectivities of tertiary learners and educators are discursively reconfigured according to market models. Students are clients, educators are service providers, and 'quality' teaching, learning objectives and student attributes and outcomes are the new language of pedagogy. But in the micro-narratives of everyday teaching and learning, higher education is refracted through multiple lenses of experience and encounter. As Gert Biesta points out, 'the role of the University is not exhausted by its economic function' and that 'although neo-liberal policies increasingly present a University education as an investment in one's future employability, we also should not forget those who engage in Higher Education first and foremost for personal fulfilment and for the intrinsic rather than the exchange value of a University degree'. Thus the desired/desirable economic subject of higher education discourse - the market-savvy chooser who drives competition through consumer demand for product quality and customer satisfaction, who recognises the worth of his or her own human capital and the (brand) value of degrees within business and industry, and who takes up the technopreneurial challenges and opportunities supposedly on offer - seems to bear only traces of resemblance to the embodied subjects of everyday life and learning who inhabit the classrooms and corridors of academe.