Neurofarming HE: how to think, feel and act in the Ne(ur)oliberal university

The term ‘neuroliberalism’ has emerged in recent educational policy analysis as a way of accounting for shifts in institutional governance which cannot be fully understood by the workings of neoliberalism. The latter has always been a complex idea, and recent shifts in global politics and related crises in UK higher education may challenge it as an overarching explanation of how the goals of capital are achieved. This paper discusses the concept’s expression in recent discourse in the field of higher education governance, focusing on the latter’s growing interest in the irrational. Its analysis highlights a discourse of ‘neurofarming’ according to which educational bodies are framed discursively as brain-like systems for the purposes of value extraction. Drawing on the ideas of speed theorist Paul Virilio (1932–2008) suggests that governance trends in HE include farming its subjects to the point of exhaustion. Whether this represents a specifically ‘neuroliberal’ turn remains moot, but it allows a close focus on how ways of thinking, feeling and acting are governed by a ne(uro)liberal extractive apparatus.