The Production of Neoliberal Subjectivity in an Argentine Public University

• Author: Romina Andrea Barboza
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221074939
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Date: 01 May 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221074939

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 244, Vol. 49 No. 3, May 2022, 131–145

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221074939

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

131

The Production of Neoliberal Subjectivity in

an Argentine Public University

by

Romina Andrea Barboza

Translated by

Victoria Furio

Argentina’s public university system has shifted from the indelible reformist tradition

of 1918, with its emancipatory and Latin American perspective, to a commodified educa-

tion in line with the global logic introducing neoliberal rationality and the neoliberal sub-

ject into the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. A review of recent reforms and a description

of the university’s institutional measures is followed by possible lines of resistance, combin-

ing ideas from the 1918 reformist movement and the current Argentine feminist movement.

La universidad pública argentina está sufriendo una conversión de la tradición de

indeleble marca reformista desde 1918 (de horizonte emancipatorio y latinoamericano) a

una educación mercantilizada según la lógica global de la racionalidad neoliberal y del

sujeto neoliberal, visible en la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Repaso reformas nacionales

recientes, y describo las disposiciones institucionales de la universidad para llegar a una

discusión sobre coordenadas posibles de resistencia entrecruzando ideas del movimiento

reformista de 1918 y el actual movimiento feminista argentino.

Keywords: Neoliberal subjectivity, Argentine education, Public university,

Entrepreneurs, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo

The purpose of this article is to show how neoliberal rationality appeared in

an Argentine public university—the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (UNCuyo)—

in accordance with the new criteria of public or business management and the

emergence of neoliberal subjectivity. In the course of the modernization of the

state between 2015 and 2019, conceptions of education and forms of subjectiv-

ization were threatened by the material conditions of existence in the educa-

tional and scientific system and the reconfigurations of teacher training

(Feldfeber etal., 2018), the defunding of Argentine scientific agencies,1 the ero-

sion of their role,2 and the thrust of new legislation. In this context, UNCuyo was

reshaped in accordance with the international guidelines established for higher

education (Brown, 2015). An analysis of national and university documents

Romina Andrea Barboza is a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. She holds a Master’s

degree in communication and public opinion from FLACSO-Ecuador and a Ph.D. in social sci-

ences from the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and was a doctoral fellow of Argentina’s Consejo

Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Her research focuses on transformations in

university subjectivities, the digital media, neoliberalism and media subjectivities, and, most

recently, gender, feminisms, and dissidences. Victoria Furio is a conference interpreter and trans-

lator located in Yonkers, NY.

1074939LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221074939Latin American PerspectivesBarboza/Neoliberal Subjectivity in an Argentine University

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