Description
The subjective theory of value is a theory of value which advances the idea that the value of a good is not determined by any inherent property of the good, nor by the amount of labor required to produce the good, but instead value is determined by the importance an acting individual places on a good for the achievement of their desired ends.
Case Study for Market Subjectivity and Neoliberal Govern mentality in Higher Education
Market Subjectivity and Neoliberal Governmentality in Higher Education This research, through an interpretive case study in a business school in India, examines student behaviour and offers an understanding of a marketisation process in higher education. The study deploys Foucault's conceptualization of governmentality and uncovers processes through which market subjectivity is fostered among students as they strive to become responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjects. The subject position is attributed to several governmental discourses of peer pressure, abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, loan repayment, and elitism that prevail in the business school. The study further highlights the roles of English language and preference for western corporations which are unique to postcolonial India. Market subjectivity results in the prevalence of instrumental rationality, failure to develop a critical academic perspective, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment and exclusion among some students. Key words: Governmentality, Higher education marketisation, Neoliberalism, Student behaviour, Market Subjectivity. Rohit Varman is Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. His research interests are broadly in the domains of critical marketing and consumer culture theory. He has conducted research on subaltern consumption, anti-consumption, embedded market exchanges, and postcolonial identity. Biswatosh Saha is Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. His research interests are broadly in the fields of institutional theory, innovation and knowledge networks, and law and regulation. Per Skålén is Professor of Business Administration at Service Research Centre, Karlstad University, Sweden. His research interests are broadly in the domains of critical marketing, service marketing and marketing-as-practice. His latest books are Managing service firms: the power of managerial marketing (Routledge, 2010) and Marketing discourse: A critical perspective (Routledge, 2008).
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In recent years several scholars have reported marketisation of higher education across the world (Bragg 2007; Gibbs 2001; Yokoyama 2008). A central issue in the process of marketisation of higher education is the creation of market subjectivity among students. This process is particularly relevant in the context of the current trajectory of neoliberal capitalism as the Third World is increasingly incorporated into global markets and marketing systems. Yet, little extant theorisation in marketing systematically uncovers the processes through which students are converted into market subjects in higher education institutions in the Third World. In this research, deploying the concept of governmentality, we offer insights into a process through which students are converted into market subjects in India. Our critical analysis of market subjectivity helps us to uncover several problematic consequences for students from the perspectives of academic learning and education in a Third World society. Our emphasis on neoliberal governmentality helps us to understand a discursive creation of market subjectivity that contributes to conformity to an order which emphasises a dominant role of markets (Foucault 2007). A governmentality contributes to exercise of power in which people define themselves and the social worlds they live in through conformity to dominant discourses (Dean 1999; Foucault 2007; Rose 1999). Neoliberalism is a form of governmentality that works primarily through institutions of markets and in which subjects are expected to be active, responsible, self-governing, and entrepreneurial in making gains for themselves. In this research, we offer insights into student behaviour in an Indian business school. Our research shows that a neoliberal governmentality is prevalent in the business school and contributes to market subjectivity of students. We show that discourses of peer pressure, abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, loan repayment, and elitism constitute the governmentality. Several of these discursive practices emerge
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because of the uniqueness of the Indian context that is characterised by high levels of socio-economic disparities, limited opportunities of social mobility, and a relatively recent shift to neoliberal state policies. Market subjectivity results in the prevalence of instrumental rationality, failure to develop a critical academic perspective, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment and exclusion among some students. In uncovering neoliberal governmentality in higher education, we emphasise the roles of pastoral and disciplinary powers in conjunction with self-governance. We further highlight the roles of competition, residential proximity, English language, and preference for western corporations, which are unique to the Indian context and have not been adequately understood in the creation of market subjectivity in higher education. These aspects of market subjectivity also help us to uncover elements of postcoloniality that have not been comprehended in the past studies on neoliberal governmentality in higher education. Our findings help to offer insights into marketisation of higher education in the Third World and to critically analyse its consequences. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS It is widely acknowledged that market forces are increasingly affecting and shaping higher education across the globe (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2006). Several writers have argued in favour of marketisation and have supported consumer sovereignty and producer autonomy associated with the process (e.g. Jongbloed 2003). In this view, students are idolized as sovereign consumers and universities as autonomous service providers (Datar, Garvin, and Cullen 2010). Some view this as a benign process through which individuals are converted into market subjects in their quest of greater educational capital (Neu and Quantanilla 2008; Peters 2005).
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Several other researchers have taken a critical view of marketisation of higher education. For example, Gibbs (2001) has suggested that higher education institutions are needed to inculcate critical thinking about markets and should not be marketised. Similarly, Lynch (2006) reports that marketisation leads to elitism and production of commercially oriented professionals rather than public interest professionals. Supporting this view, Bertelsen (2008) has observed that marketisation is leading to commodification of knowledge and to vocationalism in universities. Taking a particularly critical view of students as consumers, Molesworth, Nixon, and Scullion (2009) have suggested that students have become degree seekers instead of learners. Moreover, Gross and Hogler (2005) criticise the deployment of the consumer metaphor to describe students and argue that marketisation contributes to a decline in academic learning (see also, Datar et al., 2010). In a similar vein, Lowrie and Willmott (2009) are critical of the increasing emphasis on accreditation that results from marketisation of education. Accordingly, such market driven accreditation processes produce education models that are insensitive to local and social needs (see also Lowrie 2008). We draw upon these critical analyses of marketisation and use Foucault's concept of governmentality to interpret student subjectivity in a business school in India. In the following section we explicate the concept and its relevance for our research.
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Unpacking Governmentality and Neoliberalism. In recent years, some studies on marketisation of higher education have used the concept of governmentality to critically evaluate its consequences for academic processes (e.g. Bragg 2007; Nadesan 2006; Yokoyama 2008). Foucault (2007; 2008) developed the concept of governmentality as a critique of models of government that presupposes that government is closely associated with the sovereign or the central state. Foucault argued that governing is not only a feature of the sovereign/the state, but also of other actors and
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Borttagen: of state centred
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Borttagen: . In particular, Foucault (2007) drew inspiration from the critical discussion revolving around Machiavelli's The Prince that influenced theories of government. Machiavelli's discussion of government focused on the link between the prince and his principality, threats to this link, and tactics of dealing with these threats. Machiavelli, thus
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Borttagen: d
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Borttagen: His opponents
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institutions (such as head of families, teachers and the church). Foucault conceptualisation
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of government is associated with what he (1977; 1981) labels as 'bio-power' or "the government of the social body" (Clegg et al. 2006: 53). This implies a re-orientation of a government from securing the property and territory of the sovereign to seeing the population as something not to coerce or repress, but rather as a resource to exploit. Accordingly, modern societies are embedded in discourses channelled through educational systems, families, private enterprises, etc. that shape subjects who contribute to economic performance. Thus, governmentalities are based on and legitimated by systems of knowledge or discourses rather than a sovereign force. Generally, a discourse can be defined as "a particular way of talking about and understanding the world (or an aspect of the world)" (Phillips and Jørgensen 2002: 1). More specifically, a discourse can be understood as a fixed structure of signs that gives meaning and determines what can be said within a particular institutional or societal domain that it regulates (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), such as higher education in the present case. Thus, a discourse is performative as it describes and shapes the social world (Cohoy 1998). A governmental discourse or a governmentality achieves this outcome by promoting certain rationalities (ways of knowing) and by furthering specific mentalities (ways of thinking) which inform particular types of government and foster specific human conducts (Dean 1999; Foucault 1981, 2007; Rose 1999). Foucault (2007) defines government as the 'conduct of conduct'. With the first 'conduct' that comes from the verb 'to conduct', Foucault implies that government is about leading, directing, and guiding in a deliberate way. With the second 'conduct', the noun, Foucault refers to people's thinking, actions and emotions - the object of government. Thus, 'conduct of conduct' means a deliberate direction of people's articulated set of behaviours. In the context of higher education, Bragg (2007) draws upon
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Borttagen: fellow students,
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Borttagen: , universities, and business schools
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Borttagen: This
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Borttagen: conceptualisation
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the concept to show the role of governmentality in student subjectivity and to illustrate how a project of 'student voice' gets mired in power relationships and becomes a project of control. From the above exposition it is evident that the notion of governmentality is based on a particular understanding of power. While the state centred models of government, such as those suggested by Machiavelli and Hobbes are informed by a sovereign understanding of power, Foucault's notion of governmentality is informed by a discursive view (Clegg et al. 2006). According to the sovereign model, power is vested with some people or institutions implying that holders of power can force others who lack power to do things against their will. Sovereign power is thus associated with coercion and is conceptualised as a negative force. Foucault (1977; 1981) argued that key aspects of power are embedded in discourses or systems of knowledge. A key proposition in this power/knowledge view is that discourses regulate human relationships and power does not belong to certain agents or institutions. More specifically, discourses or regimes of power/knowledge prescribe subject positions to individuals, ordering their constitution of identity as students, managers, physicians, or academics. Foucault has been criticised by some scholars for taking a contradictory position on subjectivity. Specifically the critique has focused on his inability to resolve the incompatibility between the subject position caught in the disciplinary/confessional mode of power in his earlier writings and the emphasis on the self-constituting subject in his later work (e.g. Zizek 2000). Accordingly, this creates an unresolved contradiction between social determination and autonomy of subjects or their ability to offer resistance. Our own position on subjectivity is in line with Deleuze's (1988) interpretation of Foucault and his argument that creation of a social subject is always an incomplete process. A subject can never be completely determined and has the ability to self-reflect
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and detach through 'doubling of the self' (Deleuze 1988). Thus, subject positions are not complete personalities, but are differential positions that a discourse provides actors with in order for them to constitute themselves (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Latour (2005), makes an analogy between subject positions a discourse offers to humans and 'plug-ins' the Internet provides to computers. When surfing the Internet, access to a specific site may be denied because of a computer lacking in the right 'plug-in'. A friendly warning will appear on the screen suggesting that a piece of software needs to be downloaded which "once installed on your system [computer], will allow you to activate what you were unable to see before" (Latour 2005: 207). In the same way as the Internet provides a computer with the necessary plug-ins, a discourse provides humans with 'plug-ins' that they enact to constitute themselves. Thus, from a Foucauldian perspective a subject and subjectivity should not be understood as a stable constellation of attributes, beliefs, values, motives, or experiences residing within an individual, but as a totality of subject positions that a person enacts in a given time and space. In a governmentality analysis, enactment of subject positions is associated with self-government. Here, self-government implies that a reflexive modern person guided by a discourse 'knows' what is right and wrong and orients herself towards a particular subjectivity1. Drawing upon this interpretation, Marginson (1997) has reported that marketisation of higher education in Australia is shifting individuals away from relations of force and into relations of power in which governing happens through specific subject positions from a distance. It should be further noted that Foucault (2007) developed the concept of governmentality in tandem with a critical reading of liberal doctrines. Consequently, Foucault drew upon the concept to analyse neoliberal forms of government and the
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This interpretation of subjectivity is different from that of Zizek (2000) who has suggested that in the contemporary world, subject formation is characterised by ironic distance through which subjects play out their social roles without any commitment or attachment to dominant cultural codes.
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constitution of a particular type of market subject that neoliberal discourse envisions (Dean 1999; 2007; O'Malley 1992; Rose 1999; Skålén 2009; 2010). The nodal point of neoliberalism is freedom, a notion that seems to be at odds with a governmental rationality. However, the freedom that neoliberalism espouses is a highly qualified one. In a neoliberal society a subject is 'free' as long as she engages in self-governance and constitutes herself along the line of the market subjectivity that neoliberal discourse espouses, i.e. as an active, entrepreneurial, and responsible individual. In comparison to a welfare society that emphasises collectivised risk-taking, a neoliberal society encourages responsibilisation or "privatization of risk management" (Rose 1993: 296). This creates an individual obligation to adopt a prudent and market oriented relation to risk and to life more generally (Du Gay 1996, 2000). Drawing upon Foucault, O'Malley (1992) interprets responsibilisation as a governmental practice that creates self-interested market subjects who make choices about their lifestyles, education, health, and welfare without burdening the state. Peters (2005: 131) offers a more optimistic interpretation and argues that responsibilisation may also be premised upon a rationality that encourages "a political regime of ethical self-constitution as consumer-citizens." Hence, Peters (2005) suggests that ethical or socially responsible conduct of actors is central to the idea of responsibilisation. Neoliberalisation is coupled to an individualisation and subjectification processes that foster a particular market subject. Neoliberalism is a governmentality that promotes a government disassociated from the state and frames a population as a resource to be economically exploited through processes of marketisation (Dean 1995; 1999; Rose 1999; Skålén et al. 2008). In the context of higher education, Marshall (2004) has labelled this form of power as 'busno-power' as it is directed through the mind of its subject. He further argues that under the neoliberal model of education 'busnocratic rationality' is created that
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emphasises narrow technical skills, saleability and programmatic rationality over
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reflexivity and critical reflection. The subject positions promoted by a governmentality such as neoliberalism are, at a micro level, primarily enforced through disciplinary and pastoral power (Covaleski et al. 1998; Foucault 1977; 1981). Disciplinary power practices embody the norms of the regimes of power/knowledge that they are embedded in. Functioning as examinations (e.g. student placements practices) they operate by revealing gaps between a person's present state and an idealised norm. This enables control of people by fostering a movement towards the norm by closing the gap between the actual and ideal subject positions. Hence, disciplinary power governs by fostering normalisation. Pastoral power fosters confessions in relation to a normative system. Through avowal of innermost thoughts, a confessor regulates herself towards the normative system with or without the guidance of an authority, who could be a pastor, a senior student, a coach or a teacher. While disciplinary power governs from 'the outside in' or by controlling departures from the regulatory discourse, pastoral power defines subjectivity from 'the inside out' or by comparing a subject's avowals to an external normative system (Covaleski et al. 1998). Nadesan (2006) in examining an educational programme designed to increase student compliance and responsibility reports a simultaneous deployment of governmental, disciplinary, and pastoral powers. Although Nadesan (2006) acknowledges that a governmentality is characterized by a shift from external coercion to self-government, the author admits that punishment and guidance for maladapted individuals are also common with pathologisation of such individuals. The pressure put on an individual by disciplinary and pastoral power practices to conform to the subject position promoted by a dominant governmentality is usually extensive. This does not imply, however, that resistance is not possible. According to
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Borttagen: and
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Foucauldian interpretations, actors offer resistance to a particular managerial discourse by deploying other available countervailing discourses such as Keynesian or Marxist economic theories in the case of neoliberalism (Covaleski et al. 1998; Skålén 2010). By drawing on discourses competing with a dominant discourse, an actor can delegitimise it, question the subject positions it promotes, critique the disciplinary and pastoral practices associated with it, and offer an alternative (see also Gabriel and Lang 1995). Thus, a subject is simultaneously constituted by power and constitutes herself through resistance. In summary, under neoliberal capitalism marketisation of higher education is becoming ubiquitous. While some authors have celebrated the process as liberating and responsibilising, many others have been critical of it as a harmful process for learning and knowledge creation. The concept of governmentality casts in sharp relief aspects of power in marketisation processes that remain hidden from the traditional view. An emphasis on the creation of market subjectivity through neoliberal governmentality is one such important aspect for our study. It helps to understand a process by which power/knowledge practices foster people to take on a responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjectivity. In the subsequent sections we delve further into processes that foster neoliberal market subjectivity among the student participants in our case study. RESEARCH CONTEXT AND METHODOLOGY In order to understand student behaviour, we conducted a case study in a top ranking business school in India. Several scholars have argued that due to the economic crisis of the early nineties, the Indian state under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund introduced a structural adjustment programme that brought in the neoliberal agenda of governance in the country (Chandrashekhar and Ghosh 2000; Kurien 1995). Neoliberalism has allowed widespread privatisation of state corporations
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and reduction in welfare policies of the government (Chandra 2010). The current government believes that neoliberalism has created greater wealth and higher growth rates of the economy (Chandra 2010). Many scholars argue that neoliberalism has contributed to rural poverty, increase in inequality, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, private loot of public resources, and neglect of the poorer sections of the population (e.g. Patnaik 2006; Patnaik 2007). The neoliberal shift has led to an unprecedented boom for business education in the country. There are 1817 management schools in India, with an enrolment capacity of 141402 students, offering post-graduate programmes that are recognised by the All India Council for Technical Education, which is an apex state regulatory body in the country (All India Council for Technical Education, Undated). Most of these business schools have started in the last twenty years. A large scale privatisation and opening-up of the economy to global corporations have led to a steep rise in the salaries of the managerial cadre and a great demand for management graduates in the country. The business schools are a result and important symbols of neoliberalism in the country. Popular media and middle-class discourses privilege high paying jobs in private corporations and contribute to the institutionalisation of neoliberal rationality in the society. Admissions into the top ranked management schools are based on a two-tier process in which a common national examination that shortlists candidates is followed by screening based on personal interviews conducted by each school. The common entrance examination is conducted only in English and tests applicants on the dimensions of quantitative, analytical, and English language skills. A large number of applicants vie for admissions into the top schools. In 2009, for instance, 217520 applicants took the examination for 1500 seats in the top four schools (Wadhwa 2010). Thus, the process of gaining admission into the top schools is exceedingly competitive and difficult. Currently,
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all top management schools are self-financed through student fees and other revenues generated by these institutions. Fees in the top schools have been on the rise in recent years and are currently approximately INR 1.3 million for the two year MBA programme. Most students take loans provided by the banking system to pay their fees (Palety 2009). The distribution of resources and placement opportunities for students across these schools is highly skewed. Job offers from multinational investment banks and management consultants, often at foreign locations/postings are most prized and these offers largely remain restricted to the top three or four schools in the country (MBA Universe 2010). Such top recruiters make job offers to around 20-30% of a batch with the US dollar denominated salaries (Pathak 2007) that can be ten times the lowest salaries offered by the other firms in the same business school (Basu 2010; Business Standard 2011). In order to understand student behaviour, we conducted in-depth interviews with 17 second year MBA students, who had already completed their summer internships. As business school teachers, we could gain entry into the setting and access students. The participants were selected through a process of purposive sampling in which we tried to interview students based on their interests, profiles, and different levels of preparation and participation in the recruitment process. We interviewed these students on a diverse set of issues that included questions about their prior academic backgrounds, reasons for choosing MBA education, choice of business school, career, and courses. We also questioned these students on their academic and non-academic experiences in the business school. In addition, we interviewed an ex-student who had opted out of the summer placement process during his MBA programme to understand a different perspective on student behaviour. This ex-student and two other participants were the negative cases in our sample because of their resistance to market subjectivity (Glaser and Strauss 1967). These students resisted neoliberal governmentality and tried to deploy discourses of the
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Left to create alternate subjectivities. These negative cases enriched our analysis in two important ways. First, these cases helped us to understand how resistance and alternate subjectivities in the setting were created, sustained, and countervailed. Second, these cases offered a more critical account of the hegemonic discourse and practice in the business school. These critical accounts helped us to understand certain features of neoliberal governmentality that were not articulated by the other participants as they took these elements for granted due to their internalisation and disciplining. The interviews ranged from 45 minutes to 2 hours and 45 minutes, with an average length of 90 minutes. The interviews were conducted in English and later transcribed for analysis. The data analysis was on-going and iterative in a process consistent with emergent design and the constant comparative method (Strauss and Corbin 1990). Following an emergent design we did not try to apriori develop hypotheses, but allowed the questions and relationships on student subjectivity to emerge inductively (Atkinson and Hammersley 1988). Our emphasis in following this design was to create a reflexive process through which the learning from prior interviews, analyses, and theoretical exposure was ploughed back by us into subsequent data collection, analyses, and theorising. In our analysis, we started by identifying open codes and followed these with axial codes that helped us in uncovering some of the key themes. Finally, we did selective coding to integrate our themes with extant theory. We continued to collect and analyse data until we achieved saturation. We identified saturation as a point of closure in our data collection and analysis at which no new information was emerging from our informants both in terms of depth and breadth of their subject positions (Bowen 2008). The data generated from different students helped us to understand neoliberal governmentality in the business school. Two researchers conducted interviews with different students and this helped to achieve investigator and data triangulations.
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Triangulation along with purposive sampling and negative case analysis add to the trustworthiness of our findings (Erlandson et al.1993; Glaser and Strauss 1967). Finally, we informed participants about our roles as researchers and obtained their consent for collecting data. We have maintained anonymity by using pseudonyms for the participants and certain rituals in the school. FINDINGS In order to understand market subjectivity in an Indian business school, we primarily focus our analyses on the discursive practices of our student participants. We have organised our findings under three broad themes. These themes emerged by pooling in the data and through a constant comparative analysis of the interview transcripts. As described in the earlier section, we identified dominant themes through a process of open, axial, and selective coding in which we started by comparing salient issues emerging from individual transcripts with the entire data set. Thus, the themes presented here, which are illustrated through individual responses, are the broad patterns in our data that have been further examined through a negative case analysis. The three themes are 'Neoliberal Governmentality and Dominance of Market Subjectivity', 'Discursive Nurturing of Market Subjectivity', and 'The Problematic Consequences of Market Subjectivity'. The first theme helps us to understand the key elements of market subjectivity. The second theme identifies discourses that contribute to the reproduction of the prevalent governmentality. The third theme helps in understanding the problematic outcomes of the prevailing governmentality. Neoliberal Governmentality and Dominance of Market Subjectivity: Under neoliberal governmentality, individual subjects are expected to be responsible, entrepreneurial, and active. In a neoliberal order, markets are constituted by actors who govern themselves in relation to such subjectivity traits that further discourses
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of monetary incentives and maximisation of gains. This process sutures together selfgovernance of actors with the requirements of a market and produces market subjects. We divide this theme into two sub-tropes of Emphasising Job Market Saleability and Celebrating Monetisation of Returns. These two tropes help us to highlight the discourses of getting jobs and monetary returns in the academic programme. These discourses constitute the subject positions of our participants. Emphasising Job Market Saleability. Self-governance emanating from neoliberal rationality of our participants is evident from the emphasis on high-paying jobs. We were informed by Kartik, who had left a job in the US to attend the MBA programme, "The two years finally boil down to placement - what you remember is that you came here to get a good job and you get out after all the effort with the job." Students put considerable emphases on preparing for summer internships and on the final placements that happen from the school. We were informed by Asit that, "Everything in this place revolves around placements." Asit went on to suggest that students, "just treat this place as a placement agency?.There is no interest in courses and there is no need to study." Thus, as market subjects the ability to sell skills is of paramount importance in the job market. We were further informed by Anjan: I took my summers very seriously. I spent around 1-1.5 months preparing for my summer interviews... 'Cruises' were very helpful as a form of informal coaching...I formed a group of three and we prepared for months working until six in the morning every day. Question: So what happens to your lectures? I also attended my classes and yes but morning 8:30 classes suffered. You begin to realise that this [job] interview is more important than the academic part of it. The ultimate goal is to get a good job. Anjan's key objective was to get a summer job with a consulting organisation which he achieved by preparing for a significant amount of time. 'Cruises' are believed to be helpful
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because these are sessions on placements in which the first-year students are given training by seniors to prepare for summer jobs. A key to this process is the pastoral practice of informal coaching through which senior students guide and lead the subject to the right stance in relation to the job-market. Another second year student Prerana suggests: Everybody blows up CV. Incredibly, I had helped one of my friends with founding of a lab. I put it in the CV as 'member of the founding team', but then people asked me to change it to 'founder' when I showed it to seniors. That is why I call it a placement bureau - if you are an academic you do not think on these lines. According to Prerana the academic institution was more of a placement bureau in which the main objective of the students was to get a good job. Prerana further believes that students are often forced by the market driven recruitment process to make exaggerations about their achievements. In summary, we found that students emphasise summer jobs and final placements over most of the other activities in the business school. These students spend a substantial amount of time developing skills that help them to perform well in the job market. Celebrating Monetisation of Returns. A related aspect that market subjectivity promotes is maximisation of individual gains. Hence, amongst the interviewed MBA students high salaries constitute an important element of the governmental discourse. When we asked Ashok about what motivates students, he told us, "Money?Students here are middle class and money is a big motivator." When we further asked Ashok why he wanted to pursue a career in investment banking, he said, "My main motivation is to make money." The top recruiters who pay the highest salaries denominated in dollars also make offers for postings in foreign locations. These are the most lucrative jobs and Dilip informed us, "Everyone you meet talks about McKinsey, I-banking. You are told that these are the people living their lives and others are the unfortunate ones." In this discourse, influenced by postcoloniality, the other recruiters, including large domestic firms are often looked
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down upon and Prerana argued, "Tata Motors (a large Indian manufacturing firm) is laid back, while Royal Bank of Scotland is dynamic." Thus, with Prerana we see a hierarchy based on money overlaid with a postcolonial hierarchy (see Varman and Saha 2009). Asit further informed us: 90% of the students here are not sure what careers they want to choose even after two years of studying management. They are willing to take any job as long as it is paying. That is disturbing. Asit is involved with the planning of placements and closely observes the recruitment process. He reports that most of the students are only motivated by money. He does not like this emphasis on money, but can do little to change the rationality that prevails in the school. In summary, students in the business school are driven by market subjectivity, which in turn is constituted by the neoliberal rationality of saleability and maximisation of monetary gains. We believe that the possibility of making material and social gains associated with market subjectivity influence this outcome. The students neglect other aspects of their academic lives and often distort their interests and experiences to fit into the market logic that neoliberal governmentality fosters in the business school. We do not see our participants as passive recipients of the subject position, but rather as selfconstituting actors who reflexively seek market subjectivity to help them achieve their goals of becoming part of an elite class in Indian society. Discursive Nurturing of Market Subjectivity: The current socio-economic context in India is guided by neoliberalism. Students who join the MBA programme are already influenced by neoliberal governmentality. We found that several discourses further nurture neoliberal governmentality and foster market subjectivity among our student participants. We have grouped these discursive elements
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under the two sub-themes of Discourses of Peer Pressure, Competition, and Pathologisation, and Discourses of Uncritical Pedagogy and Elitist Policies. These discourses cover aspects such as disciplining by seniors, pro-business teaching, burden of debt, elitism of higher education, and fear of abnormality among the student participants. Discourses of Peer Pressure, Competition, and Pathologisation. We found that the second year students by employing informal and formal disciplinary and pastoral power practices play an important role in nurturing market subjectivity among the students who enter the MBA programme. According to Dilip, an ex-student: Your conditioning happens the day you enter the campus....The message in these formal and informal interactions [with seniors] is clearly that placement is the most important part of the process here. There are several practices through which the importance of placements is created. One of the key aspects is the process of disciplining and pastoral guidance of the first-year students by the second-years. Hari, who is an undergrad from a top ranked Indian school and has worked in an investment bank before joining the business school, reported that CV writing and seniors played important roles in the programme: Question: How did you prepare your CV? I talked to 40-50 seniors and discussed my CV...as many people as you meet give you different perspectives...you never know whether you are there. Question: You worked with one of the top investment banks? Why did you need to do it? It never hurts to get more opinions. Question: If everyone is doing it, should it make a difference? Because everyone is doing it, you have to do it. You do not want to be different. Question: How much time did you spend in your undergrad programme on your CV? It would be around 15 hours at max.
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Question: Why do you do it here? It is drilled into you here by your seniors... your CV is very important...It is 24 hours, 7 days a week and it is bound to influence you. Hari spent around 100 hours on developing his CV in the first year. He had academically and professionally excelled in the past and it was surprising that he spent such long hours in developing his CV. However, Hari's behaviour could be explained through the rituals of CV writing and his situation as a Third World market subject. Developing a CV is an elaborate ritual in which at first a 10-15 page (or even longer) master CV is produced that lists every achievement of a student. A master CV is finally reduced, after extensive tutoring by senior students, to a one page document that summarises the key achievements of a student. Despite past excellence, Hari believes that he is situated in a Third World country in which good positions are limited and there are many more candidates competing with him to grab these opportunities. He believes that if his potential recruiters get an impression that he has not worked hard on his CV to give an impression of an active subject, they may not hire him. Therefore, Hari alludes to a sense of insecurity that is specific to his location as a Third World market subject. The threat of becoming different from peers by not being able to find a high paying job creates a further fear of losing out and of becoming abnormal in the setting. Madhabi reported, "there is an element of fear. [Although I didn't like the idea], I worked on the CV because I was worried that all of them would get jobs and I would not have one." Madhabi was a reluctant participant in the CV development process, but could not resist the market subjectivity because of the fear of being labelled as an abnormal person and of losing out on the gains. Dilip further explains the process of normalisation and the problem of being labelled as abnormal or 'someone with a problem': I have seen students crying when they move to slot 1.5 or 2. It is humiliating to dress up every day and to come for placements, when you don't get an offer. ...
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Your complete identity in the campus is decided on the basis of your placement. Even if you are IR1 or IR2 (Institute Rank 1 or 2 based on academic performance), if you don't get a job in slot 0 or 1, you are looked upon as someone with a problem. Dilip refers to the placement process that is conducted by slotting recruiting firms into different rank-ordered slots (Slots 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2). The Slot 0 firms are invariably the highest paying recruiters that primarily include investment banks and consultancies and are the first to get a chance to interview students. This is followed by firms in the other managerial domains that pay lower salaries and are allotted subsequent recruitment slots. The annual salaries offered by these firms vary from an average of seven million INR in Slot 0 to around one million INR in Slot 2. Moreover, Dilip reports that an inability to get a top job creates enormous peer pressure on students. Dilip further elaborated on the pressure to conform: I wanted to do research on a social crisis (real project name disguised to maintain anonymity) and to opt out of summer placements. When I told seniors, Placement Reps came and met me and tried to convince me against it as if this was a crime or a sin...I said I want to explore. I had around 20 sessions with seniors and different seniors had the same message that you should not go for this research. The kind of peer pressure you face till you get into internship is phenomenal?I finally decided to go for it (research on a social crisis). Dilip's decision to opt out of the summer placement process was considered an abnormal act inconsistent with neoliberal governmentality and other students made attempts to discipline his behaviour. There was pathologisation of Dilip's conduct and other students counselled him hoping to check his abnormal behaviour. It is the disciplinary power inherent to the summer placement process that pathologises Dilip's behaviour by revealing a gap between his position (doing research on a social crisis) and the idealised norm (summer placement with a large private corporation). Furthermore, Dilip's act of deviation from the norm is seen as a confession that seniors, who perform the role of pastors, act upon in an attempt to reform him.
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In the above narratives, participants also refer to several other important aspects of the prevalent governmentality and its associated power/knowledge practices that foster market subjectivity. The governmental process begins with a three tiered interaction process between the two batches. First, within a few days of entering the programme, the first-year students are initiated into the student community through an informal ritual, referred to as 'rang'. In a highly dramatized make-believe sequence of events, the first years are informed by the second year students about a lucrative summer job offer for which they all have to compete. The ritual lasts for a few days when students prepare to compete, submit CVs, and meet seniors. At the end of the ritual the first years are assembled in one of the hostel courtyards and dunked with water. This is followed by intensive sessions on placements or the 'cruises' that are organised by the second year students. As disciplinary practices these reveal to the newcomers what is normal and what is abnormal and thus foster a process of normalisation. The third part of the process is assignment of CV mentors, a pastoral practice employed to guide first-year students to make their CVs. Second year students who have interned with the top recruiters are generally chosen as CV mentors. In the third part it is common to see students working on their CVs and in taking feedback and advice from scores of seniors. Madhabi reported: CV mentorship is a tradition here. Every senior is sharing gyan (knowledge about CV). Everyone is talking about their experiences in summer internships. It is more of 'now I know' and bacchas (children) listen to me.... you will see a group (I year students) going from hostel to hostel from one supposed expert to another (II year students). This process of guidance by seniors through pastoral and disciplinary power is facilitated by the residential campus in which all students reside in close proximity with each other in hostels. A close physical proximity ensures that students are in close contact with each other throughout their MBA programme. This residential arrangement facilitates the mentorship process and as Madhabi says, makes it common for junior students to visit
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their seniors at odd hours. The governmental process is closely monitored and controlled by the Placement Representatives, who are second year students and play a key role in liaising between prospective employers and first-year students. The residential arrangement means that students are under a constant gaze of seniors and are like inmates of a panopticon who are expected to be reformed through a process of surveillance. Dilip described the role of placement representative as follows: You can miss an (academic) assignment. But you cannot miss a placement deadline. Placement Reps are the most powerful people. ....placement reps have the right to levy fines which they do... you are fined for coming late....the kind of authority they have, they can go to the extent of saying that they can spoil your career! According to Dilip, placement representatives play the role of pastors guiding and disciplining the first-year students and 'cruises' are like clinics in which corrective measures are taken to nurture market subjects. The governmental process sometimes involves use of sovereign power in the forms of fines, exclusion, and scolding by these representatives, but is largely driven by a more seamless form of power through which market subjects are developed (Foucault 2007; Rose 1999). In summary, we found that discourses of peer pressure, competition, and pathologisation contribute to market subjectivity in the business school. Students who enter the school are actively guided and monitored by their seniors through deployment of disciplinary and pastoral power apparatuses. Deviations from the dominant subjective position will not only result in pathologisation, but also in losing out to the multitude of competing candidates in their Third World setting. Discourses of Uncritical Pedagogy and Elitist Policies. Some students believe that the business school teaching is uncritically supportive of private corporations. These students attribute the prevalent market subjectivity to the pedagogical discourses that are
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predominantly supportive of neoliberal rationality and profit-making. Arup, who considers himself a leftist and ideologically different from most of the fellow students reported: My problem is that only one view is presented in class rooms. For example, in economics primarily the neoclassical view is presented. I wish more sides were presented. In marketing, there are sessions on Critical Marketing, but only two sessions are devoted to it. There can be more of it. Arup complains that he feels ideologically isolated in the programme and is a lone voice of dissent in the student community against market subjectivity. He believes that critical theories are grossly under-emphasised in the lectures. Dilip, who was another dissenting voice in the student community, agrees with Arup. Dilip partly attributes market subjectivity to managerial discourses prevalent in classes that justify and legitimise corporate behaviour. Dilip, who resisted neoliberal governmentality by refusing to participate in the summer placement process, believes that such forms of resistances are rare because monocultures are created by uncritical pedagogical processes in the business school. Another discourse that contributes to the construction of market subjectivity is on elitist school policies on the issues of fees and admissions. In recent years, the business school has increased its fees for the MBA programme by several hundreds of thousands of rupees. This change is partly a result of the neoliberal framework of governance under which the state funding to the school has been minimised. The business school has to raise its own funds to meet its budgetary requirements and has chosen to increase the fees to achieve this objective. Although most of the students belong to middle or higher classes, they do not have the necessary savings to pay the fees and nearly 95% take loans to pay their tuition fees of 1.3 million INR. These students informed us that repayments of loans are dependent on their abilities to maximise their returns from the programme. Rajat, who has taken a loan of around one million INR reported, "there is a general sense of fear [that]
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EMI [Equated Monthly Instalment] would come to around 25000 INR [and] staying in Mumbai and with salaries in the lower range, you are left with nothing." Rajat believes that large loans force students to conform to the market forces. He realises that the cost of living in the large Indian cities, where most of the corporations are located, is quite high and requires to be supported by high salaries. Over the last century, private corporations have spread unevenly to create a large core around urban metropolises such as Mumbai and a vast peripheral space comprising villages, towns, and small cities. It becomes inevitable for the students aspiring for corporate careers to shift to these large metropolises. This movement has increased the cost of living quite substantially in large cities in India over the last few decades. And, in spite of his ideological leanings, Arup laments: I have taken a loan of 0.9 Million Rupees and my EMI will work out to INR 18000. This means that I cannot join an NGO (Non Governmental Organisation in the Social Sector) for the first few years. Thus, Arup believes that an elitist policy of high fees forces him to comply with the dominant market logic. Another factor that contributes to the governmental discourse and a broad consensus around market subjectivity is the nature of student population. Most of the students who enter the MBA program are from middle or higher income groups. Given that very few students from poorer sections of the community, who constitute nearly 85% of the country's population (Patnaik 2007), make it to the business school, elitism becomes an important aspect of the discourse in the setting. An emphasis on English language in the entrance test is an obstacle for less privileged students and restricts their access to the business school. Dilip suggests that: The whole idea of having the entrance exam in English (is flawed). How many speak English in this country? If this exam was in Hindi, I would have cleared it after my class ten...many students spent 2-3 years in trying to figure out how to tackle this monster of English. In elite and upper middle class, families interact in
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English, but among lower middle class and middle class no one speaks in English... you don't have the same understanding of English. Dilip believes that privileged students enter the business school and create a culture of elitism. He suggests that a 10th class student is likely to have the required quantitative and analytical skills to do well in the test, but an emphasis on English language makes it difficult for lower middle class students like him to clear the entrance exam. He further argues that the privileges enjoyed by the elite groups help them to become more active subjects and to make use of the opportunities presented by the neoliberal order. These advantages further reinforce the market subjectivity of students. In summary, we found that several discourses contribute to market subjectivity in the business school. The discourses of disciplining by second year students, fear of abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, and elitist policies foster neoliberal governmentality. The Problematic Consequences of Market Subjectivity: Market subjectivity in the setting leads to several outcomes that include a prevalence of instrumental approach, disregard for academic learning, and neglect of social concerns. We analyse these issues under the three sub-themes of Instrumental Approach and Commodification of Knowledge, Neglect of Social Concerns, and Disenchantment and Exclusion. These sub-themes help us to understand the problems associated with market subjectivity in the business school. Instrumental Approach and Commodification of Knowledge. We found that academic and non-academic activities were primarily driven by discourses of maximisation of returns. This approach feeds on the important role played by CVs in the lives of our student participants and Hitesh reported:
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At IIT Delhi (an undergrad school), in the first three years, I did not even know what a CV was. Here you will not take part in a competition if you are not going to get CV points. At IIT, I did things because I liked them. Hitesh contrasts his current experience with that in his undergraduate school and reports that in the business school, activities are primarily driven by their saleability through CVs. Ashok further mentioned that extra-curricular activities in the business school were also determined by their market value, "there are several clubs on campus. The main motive is CV point for joining these clubs...you also get into clubs so that seniors know you." Students realise that the emphasis on jobs was detrimental for the academic processes. Hitesh candidly suggested: The focus is on marks. The learning part is not important here...the key part is placement which is based on CG (cumulative grades). You need grades to get shortlisted and that is why grades are important. Hitesh suggests that academic performances matter to the extent that good grades help students to find high paying jobs. Moreover, some of our participants believed that grades and learning were not correlated and students could score good marks by studying for just a few days before their exams without learning much about their subjects. Madhabi attributed this neglect of learning processes to the emphasis on getting jobs, "When you have to meet 50 people for your CV, it will take a toll on you. 90% of the students are not interested in their classes." Aritra further informed us: Whenever professors are lenient, students are not interested in listening to them, no matter how good a professor is....Students who sit in front of their classes are called maggus (pejorative reference to students who are considered studious)...They are ridiculed. Aritra, who likes to sit in front of his classes and to pay attention to his lectures, is often at the receiving end of these taunts. Students also justify neglect of academic processes through a discourse of futility of theoretical learning. Santosh informed us:
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You need to remember only very little of what you read. In my internship I did not use almost any of what I learnt, unlike a med school - maybe nothing except excel sheets. Santosh, who is a physician from his undergraduate training, suggests that not much of class room and theoretical learning are applicable in the real world of business. Based on his summer job experience he has formed an opinion that management theories taught to him are far removed from the actual business practices. In summary, student activities in the business school are primarily oriented towards getting high-paying jobs. These students are driven by instrumental logic and try to maximise their gains from curricular and extra-curricular activities. In this process, academic learning is often neglected and is substituted by a discourse of futility of learning. Neglect of Social Concerns. The prevailing neoliberal governmentality creates a rationality through which social concerns are marginalised. Madhabi believes: Social concerns are not taken seriously. No one discusses these issues here...the course on ethics is not taken seriously. Someone from this place is going to be involved in a Satyam of the future. Madhabi's reference to Satyam is particularly significant because the firm has been recently reported for a huge accounting fraud and its owners have been arrested. Madhabi's belief that some of her colleagues can indulge in similar fraudulent practices demonstrates market subjectivity of students that is far removed from social and ethical concerns. Students showed general insensitivity when we probed them on social awareness and concerns towards the less privileged. When we questioned Prerana about her understanding of suicides by 200000 farmers in the country in the last 15 years, she told us:
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There is a lot of opportunity for everyone. On farmer suicide, people were incentivised [to commit suicide] as the government announced compensation of 200000 INR. I have grown up with the idea that nothing can stop you if you really want it. People can help you only if you want to come out of poverty. Prerana's interpretation of farmer suicides appears to be very different from that of experts on Indian agriculture, who attribute these suicides to an agrarian crisis and a rise in rural poverty (e.g. Sainath 2010). Prerana displays a strong neoliberal rationality by suggesting that anyone who is active and entrepreneurial can do well in life. She herself came from a lower middle class background and firmly believed that due to hard work she could do well in life. Prerana refused to acknowledge the roles of structural constraints for the less privileged sections of the Indian population. This was particularly glaring because of the high levels of poverty in the country. This insensitivity was an outcome of a governmentality that disciplined its subjects to follow market forces. In summary, we found that students as market subjects gave priority to their gains and uncritically celebrated neoliberalism. This led to a neglect of social concerns and disregard for vast socio-economic inequities in Indian society. Disenchantment and Exclusion. Some students get disenchanted and feel excluded from processes that are strongly influenced by neoliberal rationality. Himesh told us, "the first month was spent in the 'rang'. I hated it. It was demeaning." Another student Aritra, who got a job on the last day of summer placements, informed us, "placements were a trauma for me." This form of discomfort was particularly evident among students who were socially more sensitive and Madhabi informed us, "Students are not interested (in learning). I get very frustrated with it...I also cry at times." Madhabi's frustration with the place was particularly noteworthy because she otherwise enjoyed the academic processes and had done well to get an investment bank summer job. She felt isolated and was forced
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to comply with the neoliberal rationality. Dilip who could resist the pressure more strongly admitted that even he had to attend the placement 'cruises'. These marketisation processes also have a detrimental impact of excluding the 'abnormal' individuals who are not able to become sufficiently entrepreneurial and active. Shaymal, who is from a lower middle class family, described the following experience of his exclusion: I put in some effort towards CV writing - I realised later that I failed to meet people. When placement goes on, several shortlists come out. I did not get any extended shortlists [although] I had a good CG in the first term. Shyamal attributes his exclusion from the placement process to his inability to actively meet with seniors and to his inability to create a CV that would help him sell himself in the job market. Shyamal had graduated from one of the top engineering schools in the country and had good grades. However, he failed to do well because of his shortcomings as a neoliberal subject. In summary, our findings show that neoliberal governmentality is prevalent in the business school and nurtures market subjects. Market subjectivity is driven by a rationality of active selling in the job market and through maximisation of monetary gains. The discourses of disciplining by seniors, competition, pathologisation, uncritical pedagogy, and elitist policies contribute to the governmentality. Market subjectivity results in a neglect of academic processes, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment among some students. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS This article investigates student behaviour in a business school in India and offers an understanding of a marketisation process. We deploy Foucault's conceptualisation of
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governmentality and add to extant understanding of student behaviour and marketisation of higher education in several important ways. We uncover a process in a Third World country through which market subjectivity is nurtured among students as they strive to become responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjects. We trace the subject position to several governmental discourses, some of which are unique to the Indian context, that prevail in the business school. In the creation of market subjectivity, we also uncover the roles of pastoral and disciplinary power in conjunction with self-governance. Furthermore, we critically analyse the consequences of market subjectivity among students and offer insights into its detrimental impact on student learning, well-being, and social sensitivity that help to understand the marketisation process in higher education in the Third World. Our study of student behaviour illustrates how student subjectivity is shaped by neoliberal governmentality. The state centred model of government and sovereign notions of power cannot account for the process. Rather, the process of governmentality is premised upon neoliberal subject positions. Our data show that as market subjects students strive to become active, entrepreneurial, and responsible individuals. A key to this process is the development of an individualistic or egoistic orientation towards society and a fixation for monetary gains. These market subjects overlook social issues and altruistic enterprises (see also Lowrie and Willmott 2009). Thus, neoliberal governmentality creates a close entanglement between rationalities of governance of individuals and governance of markets. Several studies on marketisation of higher education have used the framework of governmentality (e.g. Bragg 2007; Marginson 1997). However, most of these studies have either examined broader shifts in university policies due to marketisation or have focused on subjective positions resulting from pedagogical processes. Our focus on student behaviour in a Third World setting offers some unique insights that have been overlooked
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in studies of marketisation. Our findings suggest that the process of subjectification is enforced through the employment of disciplinary and pastoral power practices by the second year students. The practices along with the discourse of peer pressure provide opportunities for students to control each other. Through individual training and discussions at mentoring programmes, students are given opportunities to confess their thoughts about their future careers to fellow students. Such avowals are interpreted against the backdrop of neoliberal governmentality. Thus, if the confessor avows that she is opting for a career not in line with neoliberal governmentality, such as taking a job with an NGO, it is strongly discouraged by peers. Our findings suggest that seniors take the role as 'pastors', guiding and leading their juniors towards neoliberal subjectivity. In addition to pastoral practices, disciplinary practices are also employed. In the placement sessions, CVwriting training, and in induction programmes, normal and abnormal are defined by the neoliberal context. Thus, a neoliberal discourse is given a privileged position and becomes the norm through which disciplinary processes are deployed. It must be further noted that disciplinary and pastoral practices not only control people externally, they also facilitate self-government. When students avow deviation from neoliberal governmentality or when they engage in disciplinary practices of education, the strength of the norm becomes evident to them and is gradually internalised. Our findings further show that the physical proximity of students in the setting contributes to the governmentality process. The residential school becomes a gated community that is insulated and removed from the Third World realities of poverty and hunger for its more elite students. The students who reside together are continuously exposed to neoliberal discourse that fosters market subjectivity. This process again works through both self-governance and disciplining of students. A continuous exposure to the norms contributes to their internalisation and acceptance by students. The physical
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proximity of students also creates a stronger disciplinary gaze through which the business school is converted into something resembling a panopticon in which students as inmates are under a continuous surveillance (cf. Foucault 1977). Thus, in identifying the significance of the residential campus as a gated community we further contribute to the extant understanding of the marketisation of higher education in a Third World society. Our findings further show that a discourse of elitist policies contributes to market subjectivity. We found that high fees that resulted from neoliberal policies of the state create a situation of student borrowing which in turn contributes to a discourse of greater dependence on market forces for returns. Thus, such a policy shift crowds out alternate subjective positions and strengthens neoliberal rationality. Similarly, our findings show that some students believe that the entrance exam is elitist in emphasising English language and allows more privileged groups to gain entry into the setting. Our data show that an emphasis on English filters out students from poorer backgrounds and creates elitism in the business school. This elitism furthers the marketisation of education. Thus, unlike some other findings on marketisation of education (e.g. Lynch 2006), we find that elitism is not merely an outcome of marketisation, but can also contribute to it. This process furthers a neoliberal rationality that is perceived to be exclusive because it allows already privileged students to become active and entrepreneurial in the Indian context. These discursive elements and social practices are particular to the context of a highly stratified Indian society that is experiencing a further increase in socio-economic inequities in the last two decades of neoliberalism. Market subjectivity of the students examined by us is not completely free of other subjective positions and shows that effects of neoliberal governmentality have to be contextualised (see Yokoyama 2008). We found that students show a strong preference for multinational recruiters who offer jobs in the West with high dollar denominated salaries.
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In this discourse, market subjectivity merges with postcolonial subjectivity to produce Third World elitism (see Bhabha 1994; Varman and Saha 2009). Some postcolonial theorists have suggested that the colonised may show an urge to denigrate their own national institutions and to imitate the colonisers, who in our context are broadly equated with the people and institutions in the West (Bhabha 1994; Fanon 1952; Nandy 1981). Our data show that some of the largest of the Indian corporations are considered less efficient and lagging behind the Western corporations. Moreover, students consider it more prestigious to work for the First World corporations and to be like their erstwhile colonial masters who manage these businesses. The emphasis on English in higher education is also unique to postcolonial India. The language is a vestige of British colonialism in the country and continues to determine the appropriateness of candidates for the business school. As explained above, in the Indian context English language also represents a privileged status of its speaker. Thus, the emphasis on the language continues to foster a subject who is not only advantaged and market oriented, but is also a product of India's colonial legacy. These postcolonial aspects of market subjectivity of our participants further make our study unique and add to the other accounts of neoliberal governmentality in higher education. Our data show that market subjectivity is resisted by a few. Resistance stems from a sense of disenchantment and exclusion from market forces. Some of the resisting students consider themselves on the left in their political leanings and aspire to be social activists. They interpret the social world by drawing on alternative discourses to neoliberalism. Others, especially those who come from less privileged backgrounds, are unable to become active enough to follow the neoliberal doctrine. These two groups are labelled as abnormal in the setting. There is a pathologisation of such abnormal students, who are then made to go through correctional processes (see also Nadesan 2006). Peters
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(2005), in a study of marketisation of higher education, has argued that a new morality may get created through the process of responsibilisation under neoliberalism. However, based on our findings in the Indian context we are less optimistic about such an outcome (see also O'Malley 1992). Some of our participants believed that instead of 'ethical selfconstitution' as market subjects, neoliberal governmentality encouraged students to become unethical in their conduct (cf. Peters 2005). We witnessed a widespread neglect of academic processes and prevalence of instrumental rationality among our market subjects. These findings closely resonate with the critical literature on the marketisation of higher education (e.g. Lynch 2006; Molesworth et al. 2009). We further show that responsibilisation of a neoliberal subject is limited to maximisation of gains in a marketplace and does not necessarily include a quest for a critical academic perspective (cf. Peters 2005). This analysis further helps to explain a declining academic interest among MBA students that has been widely reported (see Datar et al. 2010). Summing up, this research has offered an understanding of student behaviour as it is influenced by marketisation under neoliberalism in a Third World country. Our research raises several questions that future marketing scholarship can address, including how academic institutions can break free from neoliberal governmentality and create alternate subject positions which are more attuned to a critical perspective. Another issue of significance is to understand the role of critical pedagogy in creating greater resistance to neoliberal rationality among students. Some of the answers to these questions will help in creating a more liberated subject who will be responsible towards herself and the society around her.
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Foucault, M. (1981) The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, London: Penguin. Foucault, M. (2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at Collège de France 19771978, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Foucault, M. (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at Collège de France 1978-1979, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Gabriel, Yiannis and Tim Lang (1995), The Unmanageable Consumer, London: Sage. Gibbs, Paul (2001), 'Higher Education as a Market: A Problem or Solution', Studies in Higher Education, 26 (1), 85- 94. Glaser, Barney G. and Strauss, Anselm L. (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Gross, Michael and Raymond Hogler (2005), 'What the Shadow Knows: Exploring the Hidden Dimensions of the Consumer Metaphor in Management Education', Journal of Management Education, 29 (3), 3- 16. Hemsley-Brown, Jane and Izhar Oplatka (2006), 'Universities in a Competitive Global Marketplace: A Systematic Review of the Literature on Higher Education in Marketing', International Journal of Public Sector Management, 19 (4), 316- 338. Jongbloed, Ben (2003), 'Marketisation in Higher Education, Clark's Triangle and the Essential Ingredients of Markets', Higher Education Quarterly, 57 (2), 110- 135. Kurien, C.T. (1995) Aspects of India's Economy, New Delhi: Orient Longman. Laclau, E., and Mouffe, C. (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd edn, New York: Verso. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Lowrie, Anthony (2008), 'The Relevance of Aggression and the Aggression of Relevance: The Rise of the Accreditation Marketing Machine', International Journal of Educational Management, 22 (4), 352- 364. Lowrie, Anthony and Hugh Willmott (2009), 'Accreditation Sickness in the Consumption of Business Education: The Vacuum in the AACSB Standard Setting', Management Learning, 40 (4), 411- 420. Lynch Kathleen (2006), 'Neo-liberalism and Marketisation: the implications for higher education', European Educational Research Journal, 5 (1), 1- 17. Marginson, Simon (1997), 'Steering from a Distance: Power Relations in Australian Higher Education', Higher Education, 34, 63-80. Marshall, James D. (2004), Foucault and Neo-Liberalism: Biopower and Busno-power, available on http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Yearbook/95_docs/marshall.html MBA Universe (2010), "MBA Placement 2010 - Key Recruiters at Top MBA institutes," May 7, 2010, available at http://www.mbauniverse.com/article.php?id=3211, accessed May 27, 2011 Molesworth, Mike, Elizabeth Nixon, and Richard Scullion (2009), 'Having, Being and Higher Education: the Marketisation of the University and the Transformation of the Student into Consumer', Teaching in Higher Education, 14 (3), 277- 287. Nadesan, Majia (2006), 'The MYD Panopticon: Neo-liberalism, Governmentality and Education', Radical Pedagogy, available at www.radicalpedagogy. icaap. org/ content/ issue8_1/ nadesan. html. Nandy, Ashis (1981), The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism, New Delhi: Oxford.
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Neu, Dean and Claudia Quantanilla (2008), 'Market Discipline and Management Education: A View from a Southern Women's Cooperative', Journal of Management Education, 32 (6), 697- 715. O'Malley, P. (1992) 'Risk, Power and Crime Prevention', Economy & Society, 21 (3): 252-75. Palety, Premchand (2009), "Student worries: loan repayments, fake job offers," available at http://www.livemint.com/2009/03/22221852/Student-worries-loanrepaymen.html. Pathak, Kalpana (2007), "IIMs' foreign offers to double this season," Business Standard, January 4, 2007, available at http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/iimsforeign-offers-to-double-this-season/270220/. Patnaik, Utsa (2007), 'Neoliberalism and Rural Poverty in India', Economic and Political Weekly, July 28, 2007: 3132-3150. Patnaik, Prabhat (2006), "The State under Neo-liberalism," (Accessed on April 10, 2007), available at http://www.macroscan.com/fet/oct06/pdf/Neo_liberalism.pdf. Peters, Michael A. (2005), 'The New Prudentialism in Education: Actuarial Rationality and the Entrepreneurial Self', Educational Theory, 55 (2), 123- 137. Phillips, L. and Jørgensen, M.W. (2004) Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method , London: Sage. Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, N. (1993) Government, Authority and Expertise in Advanced Liberalism. Economy & Society 22(3): 283-299
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Sainath, P. (2010), "Nearly 2 lakh Farm Suicides Since 1997," The Hindu, available on http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/22/stories/2010012258950100.htm Skålén, P. (2009), 'Service Marketing and Subjectivity: The shaping of customer-oriented proactive employees', Journal of Marketing Management 25(7-8): 795-809. Skålén, P. (2010) Managing Service Firms: The Power of Managerial Marketing. London: Routledge. Skålén, P., Fougère, M. and Fellesson, M. (2008) Marketing Discourse: A Critical Perspective, London: Routledge. Strauss, Anselm and Juliet Corbin (1990), Basics of Qualitative Research, Newbury Park: Sage. Varman, Rohit and Biswatosh Saha (2009), 'Disciplining the Discipline: Understanding Postcolonial Epistemic Ideology in Marketing', Journal of Marketing Management, 25 (7/8), 811-824. Wadhwa, Kiran (2010), "Wary of placements, 15% fewer applicants for CAT," Hindustan Times, October 12, 2010, available at http://www.hindustantimes.com/Wary-ofplacements-15-fewer-applicants-for-CAT/Article1-611652.aspx. Yokoyama, Keiko (2008), 'Neo-liberal Governmentality in the English and Japanese Higher Education', International Studies in Sociology of Education, 18 (3), 231- 247. Zizek, Slavoj (2000), The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology, London: Verso.
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doc_461119261.docx
The subjective theory of value is a theory of value which advances the idea that the value of a good is not determined by any inherent property of the good, nor by the amount of labor required to produce the good, but instead value is determined by the importance an acting individual places on a good for the achievement of their desired ends.
Case Study for Market Subjectivity and Neoliberal Govern mentality in Higher Education
Market Subjectivity and Neoliberal Governmentality in Higher Education This research, through an interpretive case study in a business school in India, examines student behaviour and offers an understanding of a marketisation process in higher education. The study deploys Foucault's conceptualization of governmentality and uncovers processes through which market subjectivity is fostered among students as they strive to become responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjects. The subject position is attributed to several governmental discourses of peer pressure, abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, loan repayment, and elitism that prevail in the business school. The study further highlights the roles of English language and preference for western corporations which are unique to postcolonial India. Market subjectivity results in the prevalence of instrumental rationality, failure to develop a critical academic perspective, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment and exclusion among some students. Key words: Governmentality, Higher education marketisation, Neoliberalism, Student behaviour, Market Subjectivity. Rohit Varman is Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. His research interests are broadly in the domains of critical marketing and consumer culture theory. He has conducted research on subaltern consumption, anti-consumption, embedded market exchanges, and postcolonial identity. Biswatosh Saha is Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. His research interests are broadly in the fields of institutional theory, innovation and knowledge networks, and law and regulation. Per Skålén is Professor of Business Administration at Service Research Centre, Karlstad University, Sweden. His research interests are broadly in the domains of critical marketing, service marketing and marketing-as-practice. His latest books are Managing service firms: the power of managerial marketing (Routledge, 2010) and Marketing discourse: A critical perspective (Routledge, 2008).
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In recent years several scholars have reported marketisation of higher education across the world (Bragg 2007; Gibbs 2001; Yokoyama 2008). A central issue in the process of marketisation of higher education is the creation of market subjectivity among students. This process is particularly relevant in the context of the current trajectory of neoliberal capitalism as the Third World is increasingly incorporated into global markets and marketing systems. Yet, little extant theorisation in marketing systematically uncovers the processes through which students are converted into market subjects in higher education institutions in the Third World. In this research, deploying the concept of governmentality, we offer insights into a process through which students are converted into market subjects in India. Our critical analysis of market subjectivity helps us to uncover several problematic consequences for students from the perspectives of academic learning and education in a Third World society. Our emphasis on neoliberal governmentality helps us to understand a discursive creation of market subjectivity that contributes to conformity to an order which emphasises a dominant role of markets (Foucault 2007). A governmentality contributes to exercise of power in which people define themselves and the social worlds they live in through conformity to dominant discourses (Dean 1999; Foucault 2007; Rose 1999). Neoliberalism is a form of governmentality that works primarily through institutions of markets and in which subjects are expected to be active, responsible, self-governing, and entrepreneurial in making gains for themselves. In this research, we offer insights into student behaviour in an Indian business school. Our research shows that a neoliberal governmentality is prevalent in the business school and contributes to market subjectivity of students. We show that discourses of peer pressure, abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, loan repayment, and elitism constitute the governmentality. Several of these discursive practices emerge
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because of the uniqueness of the Indian context that is characterised by high levels of socio-economic disparities, limited opportunities of social mobility, and a relatively recent shift to neoliberal state policies. Market subjectivity results in the prevalence of instrumental rationality, failure to develop a critical academic perspective, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment and exclusion among some students. In uncovering neoliberal governmentality in higher education, we emphasise the roles of pastoral and disciplinary powers in conjunction with self-governance. We further highlight the roles of competition, residential proximity, English language, and preference for western corporations, which are unique to the Indian context and have not been adequately understood in the creation of market subjectivity in higher education. These aspects of market subjectivity also help us to uncover elements of postcoloniality that have not been comprehended in the past studies on neoliberal governmentality in higher education. Our findings help to offer insights into marketisation of higher education in the Third World and to critically analyse its consequences. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS It is widely acknowledged that market forces are increasingly affecting and shaping higher education across the globe (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2006). Several writers have argued in favour of marketisation and have supported consumer sovereignty and producer autonomy associated with the process (e.g. Jongbloed 2003). In this view, students are idolized as sovereign consumers and universities as autonomous service providers (Datar, Garvin, and Cullen 2010). Some view this as a benign process through which individuals are converted into market subjects in their quest of greater educational capital (Neu and Quantanilla 2008; Peters 2005).
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Several other researchers have taken a critical view of marketisation of higher education. For example, Gibbs (2001) has suggested that higher education institutions are needed to inculcate critical thinking about markets and should not be marketised. Similarly, Lynch (2006) reports that marketisation leads to elitism and production of commercially oriented professionals rather than public interest professionals. Supporting this view, Bertelsen (2008) has observed that marketisation is leading to commodification of knowledge and to vocationalism in universities. Taking a particularly critical view of students as consumers, Molesworth, Nixon, and Scullion (2009) have suggested that students have become degree seekers instead of learners. Moreover, Gross and Hogler (2005) criticise the deployment of the consumer metaphor to describe students and argue that marketisation contributes to a decline in academic learning (see also, Datar et al., 2010). In a similar vein, Lowrie and Willmott (2009) are critical of the increasing emphasis on accreditation that results from marketisation of education. Accordingly, such market driven accreditation processes produce education models that are insensitive to local and social needs (see also Lowrie 2008). We draw upon these critical analyses of marketisation and use Foucault's concept of governmentality to interpret student subjectivity in a business school in India. In the following section we explicate the concept and its relevance for our research.
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Unpacking Governmentality and Neoliberalism. In recent years, some studies on marketisation of higher education have used the concept of governmentality to critically evaluate its consequences for academic processes (e.g. Bragg 2007; Nadesan 2006; Yokoyama 2008). Foucault (2007; 2008) developed the concept of governmentality as a critique of models of government that presupposes that government is closely associated with the sovereign or the central state. Foucault argued that governing is not only a feature of the sovereign/the state, but also of other actors and
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Borttagen: of state centred
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Borttagen: . In particular, Foucault (2007) drew inspiration from the critical discussion revolving around Machiavelli's The Prince that influenced theories of government. Machiavelli's discussion of government focused on the link between the prince and his principality, threats to this link, and tactics of dealing with these threats. Machiavelli, thus
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Borttagen: d
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Borttagen: a
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Borttagen: His opponents
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Borttagen: , on the other hand,
institutions (such as head of families, teachers and the church). Foucault conceptualisation
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of government is associated with what he (1977; 1981) labels as 'bio-power' or "the government of the social body" (Clegg et al. 2006: 53). This implies a re-orientation of a government from securing the property and territory of the sovereign to seeing the population as something not to coerce or repress, but rather as a resource to exploit. Accordingly, modern societies are embedded in discourses channelled through educational systems, families, private enterprises, etc. that shape subjects who contribute to economic performance. Thus, governmentalities are based on and legitimated by systems of knowledge or discourses rather than a sovereign force. Generally, a discourse can be defined as "a particular way of talking about and understanding the world (or an aspect of the world)" (Phillips and Jørgensen 2002: 1). More specifically, a discourse can be understood as a fixed structure of signs that gives meaning and determines what can be said within a particular institutional or societal domain that it regulates (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), such as higher education in the present case. Thus, a discourse is performative as it describes and shapes the social world (Cohoy 1998). A governmental discourse or a governmentality achieves this outcome by promoting certain rationalities (ways of knowing) and by furthering specific mentalities (ways of thinking) which inform particular types of government and foster specific human conducts (Dean 1999; Foucault 1981, 2007; Rose 1999). Foucault (2007) defines government as the 'conduct of conduct'. With the first 'conduct' that comes from the verb 'to conduct', Foucault implies that government is about leading, directing, and guiding in a deliberate way. With the second 'conduct', the noun, Foucault refers to people's thinking, actions and emotions - the object of government. Thus, 'conduct of conduct' means a deliberate direction of people's articulated set of behaviours. In the context of higher education, Bragg (2007) draws upon
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Borttagen: fellow students,
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Borttagen: , universities, and business schools
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Borttagen: This
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Borttagen: conceptualisation
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Borttagen: Foucault
the concept to show the role of governmentality in student subjectivity and to illustrate how a project of 'student voice' gets mired in power relationships and becomes a project of control. From the above exposition it is evident that the notion of governmentality is based on a particular understanding of power. While the state centred models of government, such as those suggested by Machiavelli and Hobbes are informed by a sovereign understanding of power, Foucault's notion of governmentality is informed by a discursive view (Clegg et al. 2006). According to the sovereign model, power is vested with some people or institutions implying that holders of power can force others who lack power to do things against their will. Sovereign power is thus associated with coercion and is conceptualised as a negative force. Foucault (1977; 1981) argued that key aspects of power are embedded in discourses or systems of knowledge. A key proposition in this power/knowledge view is that discourses regulate human relationships and power does not belong to certain agents or institutions. More specifically, discourses or regimes of power/knowledge prescribe subject positions to individuals, ordering their constitution of identity as students, managers, physicians, or academics. Foucault has been criticised by some scholars for taking a contradictory position on subjectivity. Specifically the critique has focused on his inability to resolve the incompatibility between the subject position caught in the disciplinary/confessional mode of power in his earlier writings and the emphasis on the self-constituting subject in his later work (e.g. Zizek 2000). Accordingly, this creates an unresolved contradiction between social determination and autonomy of subjects or their ability to offer resistance. Our own position on subjectivity is in line with Deleuze's (1988) interpretation of Foucault and his argument that creation of a social subject is always an incomplete process. A subject can never be completely determined and has the ability to self-reflect
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and detach through 'doubling of the self' (Deleuze 1988). Thus, subject positions are not complete personalities, but are differential positions that a discourse provides actors with in order for them to constitute themselves (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Latour (2005), makes an analogy between subject positions a discourse offers to humans and 'plug-ins' the Internet provides to computers. When surfing the Internet, access to a specific site may be denied because of a computer lacking in the right 'plug-in'. A friendly warning will appear on the screen suggesting that a piece of software needs to be downloaded which "once installed on your system [computer], will allow you to activate what you were unable to see before" (Latour 2005: 207). In the same way as the Internet provides a computer with the necessary plug-ins, a discourse provides humans with 'plug-ins' that they enact to constitute themselves. Thus, from a Foucauldian perspective a subject and subjectivity should not be understood as a stable constellation of attributes, beliefs, values, motives, or experiences residing within an individual, but as a totality of subject positions that a person enacts in a given time and space. In a governmentality analysis, enactment of subject positions is associated with self-government. Here, self-government implies that a reflexive modern person guided by a discourse 'knows' what is right and wrong and orients herself towards a particular subjectivity1. Drawing upon this interpretation, Marginson (1997) has reported that marketisation of higher education in Australia is shifting individuals away from relations of force and into relations of power in which governing happens through specific subject positions from a distance. It should be further noted that Foucault (2007) developed the concept of governmentality in tandem with a critical reading of liberal doctrines. Consequently, Foucault drew upon the concept to analyse neoliberal forms of government and the
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This interpretation of subjectivity is different from that of Zizek (2000) who has suggested that in the contemporary world, subject formation is characterised by ironic distance through which subjects play out their social roles without any commitment or attachment to dominant cultural codes.
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constitution of a particular type of market subject that neoliberal discourse envisions (Dean 1999; 2007; O'Malley 1992; Rose 1999; Skålén 2009; 2010). The nodal point of neoliberalism is freedom, a notion that seems to be at odds with a governmental rationality. However, the freedom that neoliberalism espouses is a highly qualified one. In a neoliberal society a subject is 'free' as long as she engages in self-governance and constitutes herself along the line of the market subjectivity that neoliberal discourse espouses, i.e. as an active, entrepreneurial, and responsible individual. In comparison to a welfare society that emphasises collectivised risk-taking, a neoliberal society encourages responsibilisation or "privatization of risk management" (Rose 1993: 296). This creates an individual obligation to adopt a prudent and market oriented relation to risk and to life more generally (Du Gay 1996, 2000). Drawing upon Foucault, O'Malley (1992) interprets responsibilisation as a governmental practice that creates self-interested market subjects who make choices about their lifestyles, education, health, and welfare without burdening the state. Peters (2005: 131) offers a more optimistic interpretation and argues that responsibilisation may also be premised upon a rationality that encourages "a political regime of ethical self-constitution as consumer-citizens." Hence, Peters (2005) suggests that ethical or socially responsible conduct of actors is central to the idea of responsibilisation. Neoliberalisation is coupled to an individualisation and subjectification processes that foster a particular market subject. Neoliberalism is a governmentality that promotes a government disassociated from the state and frames a population as a resource to be economically exploited through processes of marketisation (Dean 1995; 1999; Rose 1999; Skålén et al. 2008). In the context of higher education, Marshall (2004) has labelled this form of power as 'busno-power' as it is directed through the mind of its subject. He further argues that under the neoliberal model of education 'busnocratic rationality' is created that
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emphasises narrow technical skills, saleability and programmatic rationality over
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reflexivity and critical reflection. The subject positions promoted by a governmentality such as neoliberalism are, at a micro level, primarily enforced through disciplinary and pastoral power (Covaleski et al. 1998; Foucault 1977; 1981). Disciplinary power practices embody the norms of the regimes of power/knowledge that they are embedded in. Functioning as examinations (e.g. student placements practices) they operate by revealing gaps between a person's present state and an idealised norm. This enables control of people by fostering a movement towards the norm by closing the gap between the actual and ideal subject positions. Hence, disciplinary power governs by fostering normalisation. Pastoral power fosters confessions in relation to a normative system. Through avowal of innermost thoughts, a confessor regulates herself towards the normative system with or without the guidance of an authority, who could be a pastor, a senior student, a coach or a teacher. While disciplinary power governs from 'the outside in' or by controlling departures from the regulatory discourse, pastoral power defines subjectivity from 'the inside out' or by comparing a subject's avowals to an external normative system (Covaleski et al. 1998). Nadesan (2006) in examining an educational programme designed to increase student compliance and responsibility reports a simultaneous deployment of governmental, disciplinary, and pastoral powers. Although Nadesan (2006) acknowledges that a governmentality is characterized by a shift from external coercion to self-government, the author admits that punishment and guidance for maladapted individuals are also common with pathologisation of such individuals. The pressure put on an individual by disciplinary and pastoral power practices to conform to the subject position promoted by a dominant governmentality is usually extensive. This does not imply, however, that resistance is not possible. According to
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Borttagen: and
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Foucauldian interpretations, actors offer resistance to a particular managerial discourse by deploying other available countervailing discourses such as Keynesian or Marxist economic theories in the case of neoliberalism (Covaleski et al. 1998; Skålén 2010). By drawing on discourses competing with a dominant discourse, an actor can delegitimise it, question the subject positions it promotes, critique the disciplinary and pastoral practices associated with it, and offer an alternative (see also Gabriel and Lang 1995). Thus, a subject is simultaneously constituted by power and constitutes herself through resistance. In summary, under neoliberal capitalism marketisation of higher education is becoming ubiquitous. While some authors have celebrated the process as liberating and responsibilising, many others have been critical of it as a harmful process for learning and knowledge creation. The concept of governmentality casts in sharp relief aspects of power in marketisation processes that remain hidden from the traditional view. An emphasis on the creation of market subjectivity through neoliberal governmentality is one such important aspect for our study. It helps to understand a process by which power/knowledge practices foster people to take on a responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjectivity. In the subsequent sections we delve further into processes that foster neoliberal market subjectivity among the student participants in our case study. RESEARCH CONTEXT AND METHODOLOGY In order to understand student behaviour, we conducted a case study in a top ranking business school in India. Several scholars have argued that due to the economic crisis of the early nineties, the Indian state under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund introduced a structural adjustment programme that brought in the neoliberal agenda of governance in the country (Chandrashekhar and Ghosh 2000; Kurien 1995). Neoliberalism has allowed widespread privatisation of state corporations
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and reduction in welfare policies of the government (Chandra 2010). The current government believes that neoliberalism has created greater wealth and higher growth rates of the economy (Chandra 2010). Many scholars argue that neoliberalism has contributed to rural poverty, increase in inequality, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, private loot of public resources, and neglect of the poorer sections of the population (e.g. Patnaik 2006; Patnaik 2007). The neoliberal shift has led to an unprecedented boom for business education in the country. There are 1817 management schools in India, with an enrolment capacity of 141402 students, offering post-graduate programmes that are recognised by the All India Council for Technical Education, which is an apex state regulatory body in the country (All India Council for Technical Education, Undated). Most of these business schools have started in the last twenty years. A large scale privatisation and opening-up of the economy to global corporations have led to a steep rise in the salaries of the managerial cadre and a great demand for management graduates in the country. The business schools are a result and important symbols of neoliberalism in the country. Popular media and middle-class discourses privilege high paying jobs in private corporations and contribute to the institutionalisation of neoliberal rationality in the society. Admissions into the top ranked management schools are based on a two-tier process in which a common national examination that shortlists candidates is followed by screening based on personal interviews conducted by each school. The common entrance examination is conducted only in English and tests applicants on the dimensions of quantitative, analytical, and English language skills. A large number of applicants vie for admissions into the top schools. In 2009, for instance, 217520 applicants took the examination for 1500 seats in the top four schools (Wadhwa 2010). Thus, the process of gaining admission into the top schools is exceedingly competitive and difficult. Currently,
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all top management schools are self-financed through student fees and other revenues generated by these institutions. Fees in the top schools have been on the rise in recent years and are currently approximately INR 1.3 million for the two year MBA programme. Most students take loans provided by the banking system to pay their fees (Palety 2009). The distribution of resources and placement opportunities for students across these schools is highly skewed. Job offers from multinational investment banks and management consultants, often at foreign locations/postings are most prized and these offers largely remain restricted to the top three or four schools in the country (MBA Universe 2010). Such top recruiters make job offers to around 20-30% of a batch with the US dollar denominated salaries (Pathak 2007) that can be ten times the lowest salaries offered by the other firms in the same business school (Basu 2010; Business Standard 2011). In order to understand student behaviour, we conducted in-depth interviews with 17 second year MBA students, who had already completed their summer internships. As business school teachers, we could gain entry into the setting and access students. The participants were selected through a process of purposive sampling in which we tried to interview students based on their interests, profiles, and different levels of preparation and participation in the recruitment process. We interviewed these students on a diverse set of issues that included questions about their prior academic backgrounds, reasons for choosing MBA education, choice of business school, career, and courses. We also questioned these students on their academic and non-academic experiences in the business school. In addition, we interviewed an ex-student who had opted out of the summer placement process during his MBA programme to understand a different perspective on student behaviour. This ex-student and two other participants were the negative cases in our sample because of their resistance to market subjectivity (Glaser and Strauss 1967). These students resisted neoliberal governmentality and tried to deploy discourses of the
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Left to create alternate subjectivities. These negative cases enriched our analysis in two important ways. First, these cases helped us to understand how resistance and alternate subjectivities in the setting were created, sustained, and countervailed. Second, these cases offered a more critical account of the hegemonic discourse and practice in the business school. These critical accounts helped us to understand certain features of neoliberal governmentality that were not articulated by the other participants as they took these elements for granted due to their internalisation and disciplining. The interviews ranged from 45 minutes to 2 hours and 45 minutes, with an average length of 90 minutes. The interviews were conducted in English and later transcribed for analysis. The data analysis was on-going and iterative in a process consistent with emergent design and the constant comparative method (Strauss and Corbin 1990). Following an emergent design we did not try to apriori develop hypotheses, but allowed the questions and relationships on student subjectivity to emerge inductively (Atkinson and Hammersley 1988). Our emphasis in following this design was to create a reflexive process through which the learning from prior interviews, analyses, and theoretical exposure was ploughed back by us into subsequent data collection, analyses, and theorising. In our analysis, we started by identifying open codes and followed these with axial codes that helped us in uncovering some of the key themes. Finally, we did selective coding to integrate our themes with extant theory. We continued to collect and analyse data until we achieved saturation. We identified saturation as a point of closure in our data collection and analysis at which no new information was emerging from our informants both in terms of depth and breadth of their subject positions (Bowen 2008). The data generated from different students helped us to understand neoliberal governmentality in the business school. Two researchers conducted interviews with different students and this helped to achieve investigator and data triangulations.
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Triangulation along with purposive sampling and negative case analysis add to the trustworthiness of our findings (Erlandson et al.1993; Glaser and Strauss 1967). Finally, we informed participants about our roles as researchers and obtained their consent for collecting data. We have maintained anonymity by using pseudonyms for the participants and certain rituals in the school. FINDINGS In order to understand market subjectivity in an Indian business school, we primarily focus our analyses on the discursive practices of our student participants. We have organised our findings under three broad themes. These themes emerged by pooling in the data and through a constant comparative analysis of the interview transcripts. As described in the earlier section, we identified dominant themes through a process of open, axial, and selective coding in which we started by comparing salient issues emerging from individual transcripts with the entire data set. Thus, the themes presented here, which are illustrated through individual responses, are the broad patterns in our data that have been further examined through a negative case analysis. The three themes are 'Neoliberal Governmentality and Dominance of Market Subjectivity', 'Discursive Nurturing of Market Subjectivity', and 'The Problematic Consequences of Market Subjectivity'. The first theme helps us to understand the key elements of market subjectivity. The second theme identifies discourses that contribute to the reproduction of the prevalent governmentality. The third theme helps in understanding the problematic outcomes of the prevailing governmentality. Neoliberal Governmentality and Dominance of Market Subjectivity: Under neoliberal governmentality, individual subjects are expected to be responsible, entrepreneurial, and active. In a neoliberal order, markets are constituted by actors who govern themselves in relation to such subjectivity traits that further discourses
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of monetary incentives and maximisation of gains. This process sutures together selfgovernance of actors with the requirements of a market and produces market subjects. We divide this theme into two sub-tropes of Emphasising Job Market Saleability and Celebrating Monetisation of Returns. These two tropes help us to highlight the discourses of getting jobs and monetary returns in the academic programme. These discourses constitute the subject positions of our participants. Emphasising Job Market Saleability. Self-governance emanating from neoliberal rationality of our participants is evident from the emphasis on high-paying jobs. We were informed by Kartik, who had left a job in the US to attend the MBA programme, "The two years finally boil down to placement - what you remember is that you came here to get a good job and you get out after all the effort with the job." Students put considerable emphases on preparing for summer internships and on the final placements that happen from the school. We were informed by Asit that, "Everything in this place revolves around placements." Asit went on to suggest that students, "just treat this place as a placement agency?.There is no interest in courses and there is no need to study." Thus, as market subjects the ability to sell skills is of paramount importance in the job market. We were further informed by Anjan: I took my summers very seriously. I spent around 1-1.5 months preparing for my summer interviews... 'Cruises' were very helpful as a form of informal coaching...I formed a group of three and we prepared for months working until six in the morning every day. Question: So what happens to your lectures? I also attended my classes and yes but morning 8:30 classes suffered. You begin to realise that this [job] interview is more important than the academic part of it. The ultimate goal is to get a good job. Anjan's key objective was to get a summer job with a consulting organisation which he achieved by preparing for a significant amount of time. 'Cruises' are believed to be helpful
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because these are sessions on placements in which the first-year students are given training by seniors to prepare for summer jobs. A key to this process is the pastoral practice of informal coaching through which senior students guide and lead the subject to the right stance in relation to the job-market. Another second year student Prerana suggests: Everybody blows up CV. Incredibly, I had helped one of my friends with founding of a lab. I put it in the CV as 'member of the founding team', but then people asked me to change it to 'founder' when I showed it to seniors. That is why I call it a placement bureau - if you are an academic you do not think on these lines. According to Prerana the academic institution was more of a placement bureau in which the main objective of the students was to get a good job. Prerana further believes that students are often forced by the market driven recruitment process to make exaggerations about their achievements. In summary, we found that students emphasise summer jobs and final placements over most of the other activities in the business school. These students spend a substantial amount of time developing skills that help them to perform well in the job market. Celebrating Monetisation of Returns. A related aspect that market subjectivity promotes is maximisation of individual gains. Hence, amongst the interviewed MBA students high salaries constitute an important element of the governmental discourse. When we asked Ashok about what motivates students, he told us, "Money?Students here are middle class and money is a big motivator." When we further asked Ashok why he wanted to pursue a career in investment banking, he said, "My main motivation is to make money." The top recruiters who pay the highest salaries denominated in dollars also make offers for postings in foreign locations. These are the most lucrative jobs and Dilip informed us, "Everyone you meet talks about McKinsey, I-banking. You are told that these are the people living their lives and others are the unfortunate ones." In this discourse, influenced by postcoloniality, the other recruiters, including large domestic firms are often looked
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down upon and Prerana argued, "Tata Motors (a large Indian manufacturing firm) is laid back, while Royal Bank of Scotland is dynamic." Thus, with Prerana we see a hierarchy based on money overlaid with a postcolonial hierarchy (see Varman and Saha 2009). Asit further informed us: 90% of the students here are not sure what careers they want to choose even after two years of studying management. They are willing to take any job as long as it is paying. That is disturbing. Asit is involved with the planning of placements and closely observes the recruitment process. He reports that most of the students are only motivated by money. He does not like this emphasis on money, but can do little to change the rationality that prevails in the school. In summary, students in the business school are driven by market subjectivity, which in turn is constituted by the neoliberal rationality of saleability and maximisation of monetary gains. We believe that the possibility of making material and social gains associated with market subjectivity influence this outcome. The students neglect other aspects of their academic lives and often distort their interests and experiences to fit into the market logic that neoliberal governmentality fosters in the business school. We do not see our participants as passive recipients of the subject position, but rather as selfconstituting actors who reflexively seek market subjectivity to help them achieve their goals of becoming part of an elite class in Indian society. Discursive Nurturing of Market Subjectivity: The current socio-economic context in India is guided by neoliberalism. Students who join the MBA programme are already influenced by neoliberal governmentality. We found that several discourses further nurture neoliberal governmentality and foster market subjectivity among our student participants. We have grouped these discursive elements
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under the two sub-themes of Discourses of Peer Pressure, Competition, and Pathologisation, and Discourses of Uncritical Pedagogy and Elitist Policies. These discourses cover aspects such as disciplining by seniors, pro-business teaching, burden of debt, elitism of higher education, and fear of abnormality among the student participants. Discourses of Peer Pressure, Competition, and Pathologisation. We found that the second year students by employing informal and formal disciplinary and pastoral power practices play an important role in nurturing market subjectivity among the students who enter the MBA programme. According to Dilip, an ex-student: Your conditioning happens the day you enter the campus....The message in these formal and informal interactions [with seniors] is clearly that placement is the most important part of the process here. There are several practices through which the importance of placements is created. One of the key aspects is the process of disciplining and pastoral guidance of the first-year students by the second-years. Hari, who is an undergrad from a top ranked Indian school and has worked in an investment bank before joining the business school, reported that CV writing and seniors played important roles in the programme: Question: How did you prepare your CV? I talked to 40-50 seniors and discussed my CV...as many people as you meet give you different perspectives...you never know whether you are there. Question: You worked with one of the top investment banks? Why did you need to do it? It never hurts to get more opinions. Question: If everyone is doing it, should it make a difference? Because everyone is doing it, you have to do it. You do not want to be different. Question: How much time did you spend in your undergrad programme on your CV? It would be around 15 hours at max.
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Question: Why do you do it here? It is drilled into you here by your seniors... your CV is very important...It is 24 hours, 7 days a week and it is bound to influence you. Hari spent around 100 hours on developing his CV in the first year. He had academically and professionally excelled in the past and it was surprising that he spent such long hours in developing his CV. However, Hari's behaviour could be explained through the rituals of CV writing and his situation as a Third World market subject. Developing a CV is an elaborate ritual in which at first a 10-15 page (or even longer) master CV is produced that lists every achievement of a student. A master CV is finally reduced, after extensive tutoring by senior students, to a one page document that summarises the key achievements of a student. Despite past excellence, Hari believes that he is situated in a Third World country in which good positions are limited and there are many more candidates competing with him to grab these opportunities. He believes that if his potential recruiters get an impression that he has not worked hard on his CV to give an impression of an active subject, they may not hire him. Therefore, Hari alludes to a sense of insecurity that is specific to his location as a Third World market subject. The threat of becoming different from peers by not being able to find a high paying job creates a further fear of losing out and of becoming abnormal in the setting. Madhabi reported, "there is an element of fear. [Although I didn't like the idea], I worked on the CV because I was worried that all of them would get jobs and I would not have one." Madhabi was a reluctant participant in the CV development process, but could not resist the market subjectivity because of the fear of being labelled as an abnormal person and of losing out on the gains. Dilip further explains the process of normalisation and the problem of being labelled as abnormal or 'someone with a problem': I have seen students crying when they move to slot 1.5 or 2. It is humiliating to dress up every day and to come for placements, when you don't get an offer. ...
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Your complete identity in the campus is decided on the basis of your placement. Even if you are IR1 or IR2 (Institute Rank 1 or 2 based on academic performance), if you don't get a job in slot 0 or 1, you are looked upon as someone with a problem. Dilip refers to the placement process that is conducted by slotting recruiting firms into different rank-ordered slots (Slots 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2). The Slot 0 firms are invariably the highest paying recruiters that primarily include investment banks and consultancies and are the first to get a chance to interview students. This is followed by firms in the other managerial domains that pay lower salaries and are allotted subsequent recruitment slots. The annual salaries offered by these firms vary from an average of seven million INR in Slot 0 to around one million INR in Slot 2. Moreover, Dilip reports that an inability to get a top job creates enormous peer pressure on students. Dilip further elaborated on the pressure to conform: I wanted to do research on a social crisis (real project name disguised to maintain anonymity) and to opt out of summer placements. When I told seniors, Placement Reps came and met me and tried to convince me against it as if this was a crime or a sin...I said I want to explore. I had around 20 sessions with seniors and different seniors had the same message that you should not go for this research. The kind of peer pressure you face till you get into internship is phenomenal?I finally decided to go for it (research on a social crisis). Dilip's decision to opt out of the summer placement process was considered an abnormal act inconsistent with neoliberal governmentality and other students made attempts to discipline his behaviour. There was pathologisation of Dilip's conduct and other students counselled him hoping to check his abnormal behaviour. It is the disciplinary power inherent to the summer placement process that pathologises Dilip's behaviour by revealing a gap between his position (doing research on a social crisis) and the idealised norm (summer placement with a large private corporation). Furthermore, Dilip's act of deviation from the norm is seen as a confession that seniors, who perform the role of pastors, act upon in an attempt to reform him.
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In the above narratives, participants also refer to several other important aspects of the prevalent governmentality and its associated power/knowledge practices that foster market subjectivity. The governmental process begins with a three tiered interaction process between the two batches. First, within a few days of entering the programme, the first-year students are initiated into the student community through an informal ritual, referred to as 'rang'. In a highly dramatized make-believe sequence of events, the first years are informed by the second year students about a lucrative summer job offer for which they all have to compete. The ritual lasts for a few days when students prepare to compete, submit CVs, and meet seniors. At the end of the ritual the first years are assembled in one of the hostel courtyards and dunked with water. This is followed by intensive sessions on placements or the 'cruises' that are organised by the second year students. As disciplinary practices these reveal to the newcomers what is normal and what is abnormal and thus foster a process of normalisation. The third part of the process is assignment of CV mentors, a pastoral practice employed to guide first-year students to make their CVs. Second year students who have interned with the top recruiters are generally chosen as CV mentors. In the third part it is common to see students working on their CVs and in taking feedback and advice from scores of seniors. Madhabi reported: CV mentorship is a tradition here. Every senior is sharing gyan (knowledge about CV). Everyone is talking about their experiences in summer internships. It is more of 'now I know' and bacchas (children) listen to me.... you will see a group (I year students) going from hostel to hostel from one supposed expert to another (II year students). This process of guidance by seniors through pastoral and disciplinary power is facilitated by the residential campus in which all students reside in close proximity with each other in hostels. A close physical proximity ensures that students are in close contact with each other throughout their MBA programme. This residential arrangement facilitates the mentorship process and as Madhabi says, makes it common for junior students to visit
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their seniors at odd hours. The governmental process is closely monitored and controlled by the Placement Representatives, who are second year students and play a key role in liaising between prospective employers and first-year students. The residential arrangement means that students are under a constant gaze of seniors and are like inmates of a panopticon who are expected to be reformed through a process of surveillance. Dilip described the role of placement representative as follows: You can miss an (academic) assignment. But you cannot miss a placement deadline. Placement Reps are the most powerful people. ....placement reps have the right to levy fines which they do... you are fined for coming late....the kind of authority they have, they can go to the extent of saying that they can spoil your career! According to Dilip, placement representatives play the role of pastors guiding and disciplining the first-year students and 'cruises' are like clinics in which corrective measures are taken to nurture market subjects. The governmental process sometimes involves use of sovereign power in the forms of fines, exclusion, and scolding by these representatives, but is largely driven by a more seamless form of power through which market subjects are developed (Foucault 2007; Rose 1999). In summary, we found that discourses of peer pressure, competition, and pathologisation contribute to market subjectivity in the business school. Students who enter the school are actively guided and monitored by their seniors through deployment of disciplinary and pastoral power apparatuses. Deviations from the dominant subjective position will not only result in pathologisation, but also in losing out to the multitude of competing candidates in their Third World setting. Discourses of Uncritical Pedagogy and Elitist Policies. Some students believe that the business school teaching is uncritically supportive of private corporations. These students attribute the prevalent market subjectivity to the pedagogical discourses that are
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predominantly supportive of neoliberal rationality and profit-making. Arup, who considers himself a leftist and ideologically different from most of the fellow students reported: My problem is that only one view is presented in class rooms. For example, in economics primarily the neoclassical view is presented. I wish more sides were presented. In marketing, there are sessions on Critical Marketing, but only two sessions are devoted to it. There can be more of it. Arup complains that he feels ideologically isolated in the programme and is a lone voice of dissent in the student community against market subjectivity. He believes that critical theories are grossly under-emphasised in the lectures. Dilip, who was another dissenting voice in the student community, agrees with Arup. Dilip partly attributes market subjectivity to managerial discourses prevalent in classes that justify and legitimise corporate behaviour. Dilip, who resisted neoliberal governmentality by refusing to participate in the summer placement process, believes that such forms of resistances are rare because monocultures are created by uncritical pedagogical processes in the business school. Another discourse that contributes to the construction of market subjectivity is on elitist school policies on the issues of fees and admissions. In recent years, the business school has increased its fees for the MBA programme by several hundreds of thousands of rupees. This change is partly a result of the neoliberal framework of governance under which the state funding to the school has been minimised. The business school has to raise its own funds to meet its budgetary requirements and has chosen to increase the fees to achieve this objective. Although most of the students belong to middle or higher classes, they do not have the necessary savings to pay the fees and nearly 95% take loans to pay their tuition fees of 1.3 million INR. These students informed us that repayments of loans are dependent on their abilities to maximise their returns from the programme. Rajat, who has taken a loan of around one million INR reported, "there is a general sense of fear [that]
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EMI [Equated Monthly Instalment] would come to around 25000 INR [and] staying in Mumbai and with salaries in the lower range, you are left with nothing." Rajat believes that large loans force students to conform to the market forces. He realises that the cost of living in the large Indian cities, where most of the corporations are located, is quite high and requires to be supported by high salaries. Over the last century, private corporations have spread unevenly to create a large core around urban metropolises such as Mumbai and a vast peripheral space comprising villages, towns, and small cities. It becomes inevitable for the students aspiring for corporate careers to shift to these large metropolises. This movement has increased the cost of living quite substantially in large cities in India over the last few decades. And, in spite of his ideological leanings, Arup laments: I have taken a loan of 0.9 Million Rupees and my EMI will work out to INR 18000. This means that I cannot join an NGO (Non Governmental Organisation in the Social Sector) for the first few years. Thus, Arup believes that an elitist policy of high fees forces him to comply with the dominant market logic. Another factor that contributes to the governmental discourse and a broad consensus around market subjectivity is the nature of student population. Most of the students who enter the MBA program are from middle or higher income groups. Given that very few students from poorer sections of the community, who constitute nearly 85% of the country's population (Patnaik 2007), make it to the business school, elitism becomes an important aspect of the discourse in the setting. An emphasis on English language in the entrance test is an obstacle for less privileged students and restricts their access to the business school. Dilip suggests that: The whole idea of having the entrance exam in English (is flawed). How many speak English in this country? If this exam was in Hindi, I would have cleared it after my class ten...many students spent 2-3 years in trying to figure out how to tackle this monster of English. In elite and upper middle class, families interact in
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English, but among lower middle class and middle class no one speaks in English... you don't have the same understanding of English. Dilip believes that privileged students enter the business school and create a culture of elitism. He suggests that a 10th class student is likely to have the required quantitative and analytical skills to do well in the test, but an emphasis on English language makes it difficult for lower middle class students like him to clear the entrance exam. He further argues that the privileges enjoyed by the elite groups help them to become more active subjects and to make use of the opportunities presented by the neoliberal order. These advantages further reinforce the market subjectivity of students. In summary, we found that several discourses contribute to market subjectivity in the business school. The discourses of disciplining by second year students, fear of abnormality, uncritical pedagogy, and elitist policies foster neoliberal governmentality. The Problematic Consequences of Market Subjectivity: Market subjectivity in the setting leads to several outcomes that include a prevalence of instrumental approach, disregard for academic learning, and neglect of social concerns. We analyse these issues under the three sub-themes of Instrumental Approach and Commodification of Knowledge, Neglect of Social Concerns, and Disenchantment and Exclusion. These sub-themes help us to understand the problems associated with market subjectivity in the business school. Instrumental Approach and Commodification of Knowledge. We found that academic and non-academic activities were primarily driven by discourses of maximisation of returns. This approach feeds on the important role played by CVs in the lives of our student participants and Hitesh reported:
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At IIT Delhi (an undergrad school), in the first three years, I did not even know what a CV was. Here you will not take part in a competition if you are not going to get CV points. At IIT, I did things because I liked them. Hitesh contrasts his current experience with that in his undergraduate school and reports that in the business school, activities are primarily driven by their saleability through CVs. Ashok further mentioned that extra-curricular activities in the business school were also determined by their market value, "there are several clubs on campus. The main motive is CV point for joining these clubs...you also get into clubs so that seniors know you." Students realise that the emphasis on jobs was detrimental for the academic processes. Hitesh candidly suggested: The focus is on marks. The learning part is not important here...the key part is placement which is based on CG (cumulative grades). You need grades to get shortlisted and that is why grades are important. Hitesh suggests that academic performances matter to the extent that good grades help students to find high paying jobs. Moreover, some of our participants believed that grades and learning were not correlated and students could score good marks by studying for just a few days before their exams without learning much about their subjects. Madhabi attributed this neglect of learning processes to the emphasis on getting jobs, "When you have to meet 50 people for your CV, it will take a toll on you. 90% of the students are not interested in their classes." Aritra further informed us: Whenever professors are lenient, students are not interested in listening to them, no matter how good a professor is....Students who sit in front of their classes are called maggus (pejorative reference to students who are considered studious)...They are ridiculed. Aritra, who likes to sit in front of his classes and to pay attention to his lectures, is often at the receiving end of these taunts. Students also justify neglect of academic processes through a discourse of futility of theoretical learning. Santosh informed us:
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You need to remember only very little of what you read. In my internship I did not use almost any of what I learnt, unlike a med school - maybe nothing except excel sheets. Santosh, who is a physician from his undergraduate training, suggests that not much of class room and theoretical learning are applicable in the real world of business. Based on his summer job experience he has formed an opinion that management theories taught to him are far removed from the actual business practices. In summary, student activities in the business school are primarily oriented towards getting high-paying jobs. These students are driven by instrumental logic and try to maximise their gains from curricular and extra-curricular activities. In this process, academic learning is often neglected and is substituted by a discourse of futility of learning. Neglect of Social Concerns. The prevailing neoliberal governmentality creates a rationality through which social concerns are marginalised. Madhabi believes: Social concerns are not taken seriously. No one discusses these issues here...the course on ethics is not taken seriously. Someone from this place is going to be involved in a Satyam of the future. Madhabi's reference to Satyam is particularly significant because the firm has been recently reported for a huge accounting fraud and its owners have been arrested. Madhabi's belief that some of her colleagues can indulge in similar fraudulent practices demonstrates market subjectivity of students that is far removed from social and ethical concerns. Students showed general insensitivity when we probed them on social awareness and concerns towards the less privileged. When we questioned Prerana about her understanding of suicides by 200000 farmers in the country in the last 15 years, she told us:
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There is a lot of opportunity for everyone. On farmer suicide, people were incentivised [to commit suicide] as the government announced compensation of 200000 INR. I have grown up with the idea that nothing can stop you if you really want it. People can help you only if you want to come out of poverty. Prerana's interpretation of farmer suicides appears to be very different from that of experts on Indian agriculture, who attribute these suicides to an agrarian crisis and a rise in rural poverty (e.g. Sainath 2010). Prerana displays a strong neoliberal rationality by suggesting that anyone who is active and entrepreneurial can do well in life. She herself came from a lower middle class background and firmly believed that due to hard work she could do well in life. Prerana refused to acknowledge the roles of structural constraints for the less privileged sections of the Indian population. This was particularly glaring because of the high levels of poverty in the country. This insensitivity was an outcome of a governmentality that disciplined its subjects to follow market forces. In summary, we found that students as market subjects gave priority to their gains and uncritically celebrated neoliberalism. This led to a neglect of social concerns and disregard for vast socio-economic inequities in Indian society. Disenchantment and Exclusion. Some students get disenchanted and feel excluded from processes that are strongly influenced by neoliberal rationality. Himesh told us, "the first month was spent in the 'rang'. I hated it. It was demeaning." Another student Aritra, who got a job on the last day of summer placements, informed us, "placements were a trauma for me." This form of discomfort was particularly evident among students who were socially more sensitive and Madhabi informed us, "Students are not interested (in learning). I get very frustrated with it...I also cry at times." Madhabi's frustration with the place was particularly noteworthy because she otherwise enjoyed the academic processes and had done well to get an investment bank summer job. She felt isolated and was forced
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to comply with the neoliberal rationality. Dilip who could resist the pressure more strongly admitted that even he had to attend the placement 'cruises'. These marketisation processes also have a detrimental impact of excluding the 'abnormal' individuals who are not able to become sufficiently entrepreneurial and active. Shaymal, who is from a lower middle class family, described the following experience of his exclusion: I put in some effort towards CV writing - I realised later that I failed to meet people. When placement goes on, several shortlists come out. I did not get any extended shortlists [although] I had a good CG in the first term. Shyamal attributes his exclusion from the placement process to his inability to actively meet with seniors and to his inability to create a CV that would help him sell himself in the job market. Shyamal had graduated from one of the top engineering schools in the country and had good grades. However, he failed to do well because of his shortcomings as a neoliberal subject. In summary, our findings show that neoliberal governmentality is prevalent in the business school and nurtures market subjects. Market subjectivity is driven by a rationality of active selling in the job market and through maximisation of monetary gains. The discourses of disciplining by seniors, competition, pathologisation, uncritical pedagogy, and elitist policies contribute to the governmentality. Market subjectivity results in a neglect of academic processes, subordination of social concerns, and disenchantment among some students. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS This article investigates student behaviour in a business school in India and offers an understanding of a marketisation process. We deploy Foucault's conceptualisation of
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governmentality and add to extant understanding of student behaviour and marketisation of higher education in several important ways. We uncover a process in a Third World country through which market subjectivity is nurtured among students as they strive to become responsible, active, and entrepreneurial subjects. We trace the subject position to several governmental discourses, some of which are unique to the Indian context, that prevail in the business school. In the creation of market subjectivity, we also uncover the roles of pastoral and disciplinary power in conjunction with self-governance. Furthermore, we critically analyse the consequences of market subjectivity among students and offer insights into its detrimental impact on student learning, well-being, and social sensitivity that help to understand the marketisation process in higher education in the Third World. Our study of student behaviour illustrates how student subjectivity is shaped by neoliberal governmentality. The state centred model of government and sovereign notions of power cannot account for the process. Rather, the process of governmentality is premised upon neoliberal subject positions. Our data show that as market subjects students strive to become active, entrepreneurial, and responsible individuals. A key to this process is the development of an individualistic or egoistic orientation towards society and a fixation for monetary gains. These market subjects overlook social issues and altruistic enterprises (see also Lowrie and Willmott 2009). Thus, neoliberal governmentality creates a close entanglement between rationalities of governance of individuals and governance of markets. Several studies on marketisation of higher education have used the framework of governmentality (e.g. Bragg 2007; Marginson 1997). However, most of these studies have either examined broader shifts in university policies due to marketisation or have focused on subjective positions resulting from pedagogical processes. Our focus on student behaviour in a Third World setting offers some unique insights that have been overlooked
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in studies of marketisation. Our findings suggest that the process of subjectification is enforced through the employment of disciplinary and pastoral power practices by the second year students. The practices along with the discourse of peer pressure provide opportunities for students to control each other. Through individual training and discussions at mentoring programmes, students are given opportunities to confess their thoughts about their future careers to fellow students. Such avowals are interpreted against the backdrop of neoliberal governmentality. Thus, if the confessor avows that she is opting for a career not in line with neoliberal governmentality, such as taking a job with an NGO, it is strongly discouraged by peers. Our findings suggest that seniors take the role as 'pastors', guiding and leading their juniors towards neoliberal subjectivity. In addition to pastoral practices, disciplinary practices are also employed. In the placement sessions, CVwriting training, and in induction programmes, normal and abnormal are defined by the neoliberal context. Thus, a neoliberal discourse is given a privileged position and becomes the norm through which disciplinary processes are deployed. It must be further noted that disciplinary and pastoral practices not only control people externally, they also facilitate self-government. When students avow deviation from neoliberal governmentality or when they engage in disciplinary practices of education, the strength of the norm becomes evident to them and is gradually internalised. Our findings further show that the physical proximity of students in the setting contributes to the governmentality process. The residential school becomes a gated community that is insulated and removed from the Third World realities of poverty and hunger for its more elite students. The students who reside together are continuously exposed to neoliberal discourse that fosters market subjectivity. This process again works through both self-governance and disciplining of students. A continuous exposure to the norms contributes to their internalisation and acceptance by students. The physical
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proximity of students also creates a stronger disciplinary gaze through which the business school is converted into something resembling a panopticon in which students as inmates are under a continuous surveillance (cf. Foucault 1977). Thus, in identifying the significance of the residential campus as a gated community we further contribute to the extant understanding of the marketisation of higher education in a Third World society. Our findings further show that a discourse of elitist policies contributes to market subjectivity. We found that high fees that resulted from neoliberal policies of the state create a situation of student borrowing which in turn contributes to a discourse of greater dependence on market forces for returns. Thus, such a policy shift crowds out alternate subjective positions and strengthens neoliberal rationality. Similarly, our findings show that some students believe that the entrance exam is elitist in emphasising English language and allows more privileged groups to gain entry into the setting. Our data show that an emphasis on English filters out students from poorer backgrounds and creates elitism in the business school. This elitism furthers the marketisation of education. Thus, unlike some other findings on marketisation of education (e.g. Lynch 2006), we find that elitism is not merely an outcome of marketisation, but can also contribute to it. This process furthers a neoliberal rationality that is perceived to be exclusive because it allows already privileged students to become active and entrepreneurial in the Indian context. These discursive elements and social practices are particular to the context of a highly stratified Indian society that is experiencing a further increase in socio-economic inequities in the last two decades of neoliberalism. Market subjectivity of the students examined by us is not completely free of other subjective positions and shows that effects of neoliberal governmentality have to be contextualised (see Yokoyama 2008). We found that students show a strong preference for multinational recruiters who offer jobs in the West with high dollar denominated salaries.
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In this discourse, market subjectivity merges with postcolonial subjectivity to produce Third World elitism (see Bhabha 1994; Varman and Saha 2009). Some postcolonial theorists have suggested that the colonised may show an urge to denigrate their own national institutions and to imitate the colonisers, who in our context are broadly equated with the people and institutions in the West (Bhabha 1994; Fanon 1952; Nandy 1981). Our data show that some of the largest of the Indian corporations are considered less efficient and lagging behind the Western corporations. Moreover, students consider it more prestigious to work for the First World corporations and to be like their erstwhile colonial masters who manage these businesses. The emphasis on English in higher education is also unique to postcolonial India. The language is a vestige of British colonialism in the country and continues to determine the appropriateness of candidates for the business school. As explained above, in the Indian context English language also represents a privileged status of its speaker. Thus, the emphasis on the language continues to foster a subject who is not only advantaged and market oriented, but is also a product of India's colonial legacy. These postcolonial aspects of market subjectivity of our participants further make our study unique and add to the other accounts of neoliberal governmentality in higher education. Our data show that market subjectivity is resisted by a few. Resistance stems from a sense of disenchantment and exclusion from market forces. Some of the resisting students consider themselves on the left in their political leanings and aspire to be social activists. They interpret the social world by drawing on alternative discourses to neoliberalism. Others, especially those who come from less privileged backgrounds, are unable to become active enough to follow the neoliberal doctrine. These two groups are labelled as abnormal in the setting. There is a pathologisation of such abnormal students, who are then made to go through correctional processes (see also Nadesan 2006). Peters
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(2005), in a study of marketisation of higher education, has argued that a new morality may get created through the process of responsibilisation under neoliberalism. However, based on our findings in the Indian context we are less optimistic about such an outcome (see also O'Malley 1992). Some of our participants believed that instead of 'ethical selfconstitution' as market subjects, neoliberal governmentality encouraged students to become unethical in their conduct (cf. Peters 2005). We witnessed a widespread neglect of academic processes and prevalence of instrumental rationality among our market subjects. These findings closely resonate with the critical literature on the marketisation of higher education (e.g. Lynch 2006; Molesworth et al. 2009). We further show that responsibilisation of a neoliberal subject is limited to maximisation of gains in a marketplace and does not necessarily include a quest for a critical academic perspective (cf. Peters 2005). This analysis further helps to explain a declining academic interest among MBA students that has been widely reported (see Datar et al. 2010). Summing up, this research has offered an understanding of student behaviour as it is influenced by marketisation under neoliberalism in a Third World country. Our research raises several questions that future marketing scholarship can address, including how academic institutions can break free from neoliberal governmentality and create alternate subject positions which are more attuned to a critical perspective. Another issue of significance is to understand the role of critical pedagogy in creating greater resistance to neoliberal rationality among students. Some of the answers to these questions will help in creating a more liberated subject who will be responsible towards herself and the society around her.
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