PEDAGOGY OF RECLAIMING LIFE: THAI YOUTH AND DEHUMANIZATION UNDER NEOLIBERALISM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64186/jsp3246Keywords:
Youth , Pedagogy, Dehumanization , NeoliberalismAbstract
This paper engages in a theoretical discussion of how education should intervene in the contemporary context of the dehumanization of youth under neoliberalism a condition in which young people are compelled to accept a form of existence in which life cannot be lived as it ought to be. Drawing on the narratives of the young people discussed, I argue that education must operate as a project of life one that affirms that life is more than mere survival or being trapped in the present, and that a life is possible only when the future remains open as a horizon of possibility. This approach is conceptualized as what I call a pedagogy of reclaiming life: an educational practice that places the lived experiences of young people their struggles, dreams, and hopes at the center of inquiry and critique. Such a pedagogy seeks to reveal how these lives are shaped and constrained under existing social orders, particularly through mechanisms of governance structured around debt and precarity, while also opening space to imagine forms of life in which the future is no longer imprisoned.
References
Agamben, G. (2000). Means without end: Notes on politics. University of Minnesota Press.
Berardi, F. (2009). Precarious rhapsody: Semiocapitalism and the pathologies of the post-alpha
generation. Minor Compositions.
Fleming, P. (2017). The death of homo economicus: Work, debt and the myth of endless DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1v2xw07
accumulation. Pluto Press.
Foti, A. (2017). General theory of the precariat: Great recession, revolution, reaction. Institute of DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315593838-14
Network Cultures.
Freire, P. (2017). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin Classics.
Freire, P., Macedo, D., & Freire, A. M. A. (2007). Daring to dream: Toward a pedagogy of the
unfinished (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315635309 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315635309
Giroux, H. A. (2009). Youth in a suspect society: Democracy or disposability? Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100565 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100565
Han, B.-C. (2015). The burnout society. Stanford University Press.
Kittirianglaph, K. (2017). Autonomia: Cognitive capitalism, immaterial labor, and the revolution
of the commons. Illuminations Edition.
Lazzarato, M. (2012). The making of the indebted man: An essay on the neoliberal condition.
Semiotext(e).
Lorey, I. (2015). State of insecurity: Government of the precarious. Verso.
Prapasanobol, A. (2025). Learning to labor? Reconsider schooling and capitalism in the 21st
century from a post-Marxist perspective. In The Asian conference on education 2024:
Official conference proceedings (pp. 781–791). https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5892.2025.68 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5892.2025.68
Sirisuttichai, W. (2022, August 27). Vulnerable, shattered, dreamless: Exploring the lives that
youth face in the neoliberal society. Prachatai. https://prachatai.com/journal/2022/08/100231
Standing, G. (2011). The precariat: The new dangerous class. Bloomsbury Academic. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781849664554
Standing, G. (2014). A precariat charter: From denizens to citizens. Bloomsbury Academic. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781472510631
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Journal of social studies perspectives
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, which allows others to share the article while giving appropriate credit to the author. It prohibits the use of the article for commercial purposes or the creation of derivative works. Any other reuse or reproduction requires permission from the journal.
