University, neoliberalism and hegemonic bodies: narratives of international students in Chile

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the production of neoliberal subjectivities in Latin American international students in Chilean universities. In last years, Chile have registered plenty political uprisings regarding its economic, social and gender inequalities. The premise is that Chile is a country where Neoliberalism is rooted not only in the form of political and economic guidelines, but as rationality. It proposes that these forms of thought-action reinforce typically male success stereotypes, dismissing bodies challenged of non-hegemonic paths. Narrative interviews with doctoral students in Chile are used to describe how the topic of academic excellence sustained by the Chilean neoliberal university market materializes differently in each body. Students report the interpellation of success discourses affecting their bodies and relating their nationhood, gender and sexualities experiences to feelings of diminishment, loneliness, discrimination, etc. I argue that the presence of neoliberal rationalities in the Chilean university favours the exercise of sexist practices, naturalized as market practices, and impose normative adjustments on the gender and sexuality performance of students.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism and education
• internationalization of education
• gender relations
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Chilean Commission for Science and Technology (CONICYT) under grant # 21160217.

Notes on contributors

César Augusto Ferrari Martinez

César Augusto Ferrari Martinez is an Assistant Professor of the Geography Department at Universidade Federal de Pelotas (Brazil) and PhD Candidate at College of Education of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He has been studying the relationship between space and knowledge and has been focused on embodied geopolitics and scales. His work analyses the political significance of discourses, policies and practices of international education in Latin American contexts.