Enacting Colonial and Neoliberal Governmentalities through American ELT Programs in Pakistan

Abstract Several scholars have examined the increasing influence of neoliberalism in TESOL/ELT, including pedagogy, curricula, and policy discourses. These neoliberal rationalities are, however, not detached from coloniality in Global Southern countries. Taking Pakistan as a case study, the present study examines how neoliberal subjectivities intersect with colonial logics in US‐funded ELT programs in Pakistan. Since the 9/11 attacks, these programs have been implemented in many Muslim and South Asian countries, including Pakistan in an attempt to secularize as well as de‐radicalize their academic and social spaces. Two data sources were used in this study: (a) online teaching materials and (b) local teachers' perspectives gathered through open‐ended Google survey and semi‐structured interviews. The study draws on neoliberal and colonial governmentalities as theoretical lens to suggest how the US‐financed ELT programs for students from humble backgrounds attempt to fabricate entrepreneurial “selves” through discourses of linguistic entrepreneurship and instrumentalism in addition to propagating American linguistic imperialism and a cognitive as well as aesthetic feudalism. It appears that these governmentalities are in conflict with the local cultural, religious, and linguistic resources of the teachers and learners. Thus, this study joins decolonial discourse in order to crumble the colonial wall built around the abyssal thinking surrounding the nexus of neoliberalism and coloniality. The abyssal thinking in ELT has implications for several contexts, where these U.S.‐sponsored programs are implemented as they tend to silence, exclude, and peripheralize diverse pedagogical and cultural resources as well as subaltern epistemologies.