Subjects of choice and lifelong learning

Abstract

This paper addresses some of the discursive practices of neoliberal government through which the subject is constituted as a subject of choice—subjects whose life trajectory is shaped by the imperatives of a labour market in which they will become mobile and flexible workers with multiple careers and jobs. Mobility among these multiple careers and jobs is secured through ongoing investment in education and training: an investment in lifelong learning. The paper analyses the ways in which neoliberal discourses of freedom and choice are mapped onto discourses of the market, and of the labour market in particular, and recognizes the centrality of education and training as sites and technologies for the production of mobile and flexible worker/subjects. Drawing on life‐history narratives of forty 18‐ to 65‐year‐olds, the paper addresses the discourses of choice, education and lifelong learning through which mobility within and adaptation to the labour market is understood as necessary, desirable and essential to successful negotiation of the multiple opportunities the participants believed were available to them now and in the future.

Notes

1. An ARC Discovery project, ‘A psychosocial approach to subjectivity and a changing Australian labour market’, with Bronwyn Davies and Valerie Walkerdine. Interviews were conducted by the author of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Bansel

Peter Bansel is a Senior Research Assistant at the University of Western Sydney. He is working on an Australian Research Council funded project with Bronwyn Davies and Valerie Walkerdine, exploring the impacts of changes in the labour market on worker subjectivity.