From Homo Œconomicus to Homo in Debitum: effects of neoliberalism in education

Abstract

In this paper debt and indebtedness in the educational market is under discussion, which puts in operation a biopolitical control device in the subjectivization processes of the neoliberal logic established by the gradient of Homo œconomicus, making educational consumption an investment in the constitution of human capital. So, the production of the indebted subject transposes the subjectivity of the Homo œconomicus model to the form of Homo in debitum, which constitutes the effect of the biopolitical device. Finally, the paper points out that the control introduced in the indebted life, in the own biopolitical game, can provoke a resistance toward the invention of different truths that would produce other subjectivities not governed by debt.