Ball, SJ; (2017) Laboring to Relate: Neoliberalism, Embodied Policy, and Network Dynamics. Peabody Journal of Education , 92 (1) pp. 29-41. 10.1080/0161956X.2016.1264802.

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Abstract

Bourdieu (1986 Bourdieu, P. (1986). Forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York, NY: Greenwood Press. ) observes that the existence of a network of connections is not given, rather it is “the product of endless effort” required “in order to produce and reproduce lasting, useful relationships that can secure material or symbolic profits” (p. 90). This paper builds on previous research (Ball, 2012 Ball, S. J. (2012). Global Education Inc.: New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. London, England: Routledge., Ball & Junemann, 2012 Ball, S. J., & Junemann, C. (2012). Networks, new governance and education. Bristol, England: Policy Press.) to explore some aspects of the embodiment of policy. I draw on Larner and Laurie's (2010 Larner, W., & Laurie, N. (2010). Travelling technocrats, embodied knowledges: Globalising privatisation in telecoms and water. Geoforum, 41, 218–226.) work on technocratic expertise and how, as she puts it, “privatisation ideas and practices are transferred in embodied forms,” and in particular her argument “that this has significant implications for how privatisation is globalized” (p. 218). Concomitantly, I respond to McFarlane's (2009 McFarlane, C. (2009). Translocal assemblages: Space, power and social movements. Geoforum, 40, 561–567.) assertion that we need to pay much greater attention to the labor of policy work (Gale, 2003 Gale, T. (2003). “Realising policy: The who and the how of policy production.” Discourse, 24(1), 51–65.). From these starting points, the paper focuses on the “multiple actors, multiple geographies and multiple translations involved in the processes of policy transfer” (Larner & Laurie, 2010 Larner, W., & Laurie, N. (2010). Travelling technocrats, embodied knowledges: Globalising privatisation in telecoms and water. Geoforum, 41, 218–226., p. 225) and, more generally, how these actors play a part in the neoliberalization of education or, to paraphrase Rankin (2003 Rankin, K. (2003). Anthropologies and geographies of globalization. Progress in Human Geography, 27(6), 708–734.), in “anchoring neoliberalism” (p. 709). I begin and end with discussions of research concepts, research method, and their interrelation: that is, policy networks, policy ethnography, and policy mobility. The central section is mainly devoted to a presentation of various data to adumbrate one part of a global education policy network with a focus on India (and the Indian Education Reform Movement [IERM]) and on one network participant.

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