Affective Governmentality, 1st ed. 2019 Neoliberal Education Advertisements in Singapore Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education Series, Vol. 9

This book investigates the subjectivities in education arising from the triumphant mobilisation of care as portrayed in educational advertisements, and provides a novel theory of affective governmentality based on empirical research on affect, neoliberalism, and governmentality. It also takes the bold step of encouraging the re-imagination of the central and pressing question of school marketisation in Singapore, and problematises the seemingly innocuous portrayals of care in light of neoliberal governmentality seeking to perform cultural work on preferred identities and subjectivities. Using a judicious selection of media artefacts, the book scrutinises the creation of emotional technologies through an ethic of caring, harnessing vulnerabilities and triumphalism. As such it not only equips readers to understand the role of emotional technologies but also offers a critical and alternative view of hope and aspirations for transforming society.

1 Governmentality and Education: Vulnerable Triumphalism as a Technology.- 2 Pastoral Power and Governmental Subjectivities: An Analysis of a Teacher Recruitment Advertisement.- 3 Governmentality and Mediatisation: An Analysis of a Teacher Recruitment Advertising Campaign.- 4 Governmentality, Geosemiotics, and the Visual Culture of School Banner Advertisements.- 5 Governmentality, School Marketisation, and the Biopolitics of Custom-Built School Advertisements.- 6 Critical Conceptions of Hope and Aspiration: Hopeful Recommendations.

Andrew Pereira is a researcher at the Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) National Institute of Education. His research interests include educational sociology, discourse studies, multimodality, and youth purpose. The central focus of his research delves into the political economy of education considering neoliberal philosophies and policies. Aiming to investigate ideology, he employs a variety of method including discourse, multimodal, and systemic functional grammatical analysis; architectural studies; literary criticism; and film theory. He has also taught in secondary schools and junior colleges in Singapore, He has published in journals like Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics and Pedagogies: An International Journal. In 2012, he was awarded the Nanyang Technological University Research Scholarship, where he obtained his Ph.D in English Studies from the National Institute of Education. In 2014, he won the Best Paper Award at the APERA Conference held in Hong Kong.