Biopolitics and lifelong learning: the vitalistic turn in English further education discourse

This paper argues that a shift in discourse about the nature and purpose of Further Education is under way in England. A recent White Paper, “Skills for jobs: lifelong learning for opportunity and growth” (DFE, 2021), issued by the UK government, is couched in terms which suggest that a prior reliance on the ideology of neoliberalism is now moving towards the objectives and instruments of what Michel Foucault termed biopolitics, or the exploitation of life itself. I analyse the White Paper and related recent texts to show how a form of vitalist discourse accompanies attempts to accelerate potentially problematic processes of value-extraction. While these developments respond partly to the societal changes resulting from the threats to life of the Coronavirus pandemic and other existential crises, their likely impact suggests a shift in the discourses of lifelong learning: an existing apparatus of normalization and control is now turning to biopolitical exploitation.