Enclosure and differentiation: the mute compulsion at play in the privatisation of education in a postcolonial context

The concept of ‘mute compulsion’ of economic relations conveys a form of power ‘based on altering the material conditions for social reproduction.’ In other words, it reveals the set of compulsory economic rules that humans need to navigate in order to survive in a capitalist world. While Soren Mau (2023) has convincingly explored the abstract forms in which this mute compulsion works and subjugates, I will focus on how it manifests in a context where such rules are embedded in high levels of precarity and inequality. I will argue that the different manifestations of capitalism (Peck & Theodore, 2007) set quite particular ways in which the economic power of capital compels and alters social reproduction using the case of the Peruvian private educational sector. Recently, Peru has been categorised as the fourth most unequal country in the world (Chancel et al., 2023), while scholars have been alerting about the extent of educational segregation for several years (Benavides et al., 2014). In such a context, competition and value, crucial aspects of the economic power of capital, take specific forms. I will explore how educational capitalism in Peru thrives on differentiation and separation by enclosing forms of sociality and profiting from them. Following this, I will set up a dialogue between Mau’s proposal with Aihwa Ong’s (2006) notion of neoliberalism as an exception. Ong argues that the diverse expressions of neoliberalism arise from adaptations and tensions and function as an exception in non-Western contexts, as it disrupts and conflicts with existing social, cultural, and political structures and practices while simultaneously creating specific regimes of citizenship. Similarly, capitalism does not entirely replace local norms and rules but interacts with them, sometimes leading to contradictions. In this presentation, I will delve into how the diverse manifestations of capitalism interact with local norms and give rise to specific forms of material conditions for social reproduction, which may shed light on how the economic and cultural dimensions are intertwined in the totality of capital.