This paper examines the widespread policy discourses that have constructed the notion of student as consumer in English higher education, and it questions the implications of consumerism on students’ political participation. It will start by briefly exploring the ways in which consumerism has been produced in England with the particular examples of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. It will then move on to discuss the implications of consumerism on students’ political engagement. In capturing student politics, some have problematised the changing role of students’ unions (e.g. Brooks et al., 2015, 2016; Klemenčič, 2014; Nissen, 2019; Raaper, 2020a, 2020b, 2021), others have investigated student demonstrations with a particular example of student revolts in 2010/11 (e.g. Cini and Guzman-Concha, 2017; Hensby, 2017; Myers, 2017). Furthermore, some scholars argue that universities are ideal spaces within which to develop collective action (e.g. Altbach and Klemenčič, 2014; Hensby, 2017), others suggest that market forces have made it more difficult for students to ‘learn how to think about, and do politics to effect change’ (e.g. Nissen and Hayward, 2017: 141). This paper aims to bring these different aspects together to address the question: what form does student politics take in a contemporary English higher education setting shaped by consumerist positioning of students? By drawing on Arendt (1958), the paper argues that the construction of student as consumer can result in ‘an animal laboran’ who is primarily concerned with oneself, one’s self-preservation and employability. It is therefore unsurprising that traditional forms of student demonstration have become less likely in contexts where students experience high tuition fees and student debt. However, I do not aim to suggest that student politics in England is necessarily in decline but encourage us to consider how new forms of individualised political practices can emerge as part and in response to dominant neoliberal discourses. From a Foucauldian perspective, the individual is always ‘subject to someone else by control and dependence [and tied to their] own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge’ (Foucault, 1982: 331). While collective action might have become difficult in neoliberalised universities, a Foucauldian approach allows us to place ‘the student as the political actor’ at the centre of student politics. By doing this, we may start noticing more subtle forms of student political voice and practices, i.e. related to manipulating consumer rights, endorsing student representation, participating in interest-based groups and social media-led campaigns.

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