Foreign language education at the nexus of neoliberalism and coloniality: subjectivity in South Korean discourses of education reform

ABSTRACT This paper discusses how critiquing the convergence of neoliberalism and coloniality can become a crucial juncture for imagining alternatives to neoliberal foreign language education. Neoliberalism and coloniality are both mediated by aspects of subjectivity, which not only obscures their co-dependence, but also naturalizes their logic as they become embedded in dimensions of affect, desire, and morality. Discourses of educational reform that do not attend to this link risk being appropriated by neoliberal ideologies, as they may fail to situate neoliberal conditions of education within broader historical conditions of inequality. This paper illustrates this point through a critical analysis of debates on education reform in Korea, with a focus on a Korean television documentary which argues for liberal reforms emphasizing creativity, individuality, and excellence. The analysis shows how the voice of white Westerners as perceiving subjects is frequently invoked to problematize the Korean education system for its supposed irrationality and backwardness, naturalizing the mutual constitution of historical conditions of capitalism and colonialism through representations of affect. Based on this discussion, this paper argues that alternatives to neoliberal language education must be rooted in policy and practice that questions deeply entrenched subjectivities of capitalism and colonialism.