‘Neoliberal spatial technologies’: on the practices of educational policy change

Abstract

This paper explores the spatial dimensions of neoliberalism, in relation to educational policy change in the inner‐city of Sydney, Australia. It offers a response to Peck and Tickell's challenge that studies of neoliberalism are often undertaken as discrete macro‐ or micro‐analyses without attention to the links between, and across, these scales. The paper posits the notion of ‘neoliberal spatial technologies’, a bricolage of neoliberalism, governmentality and relational space, to contribute to cross‐scalar understandings of neoliberalism in relation to inner‐city educational policy change. An adumbrated analysis is presented of the practices surrounding the outcome of educational policy change in inner‐Sydney. The paper concludes that these practices, drawing on discourses of neoliberalism and relational space, constitute particular students as possible neoliberal educational subjects.