Casino culture: the subjectivity of university students in Macau

Li, Yulong (2025) Casino culture: the subjectivity of university students in Macau. Ed.D thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Following the transfer of Macau’s sovereignty to China in 1999, an economic nationalism policy centred on casino capitalism was implemented to decolonise the populace of Macau. Casino capitalism introduced neoliberalism, infusing market values and a consumerist ethos into the local community and shaping the identities of its inhabitants, leading to a growing indifference towards education among the people of Macau. Recently, policymakers have committed to accelerating the industrialisation of local universities as part of the neoliberalisation of higher education. However, there is a lack of research exploring the subjectivity of Macau’s students within neoliberalism. Most existing research on Macau’s higher education has been conducted from the perspectives of teachers and researchers. To explore the subjectivity of Macau’s university students through their own voices, I designed a post-structuralist case study focused on four students. To conceptualise and analyse the data, I used Foucault’s care of the self, hermeneutics of the self, and technology of domination as theoretical lens matrices to interpret their subjectivity within neoliberalism. Since Macau is a Chinese territory steeped in Confucian culture, the present study also incorporated a theoretical lens based on secularised Confucianism.

The study found that university students from Macau appeared to have become subjects of neoliberalism. Rather than being subjects of casino capitalism, they were self-actualizing and responsive to performativity as homo economicus, assuming the role of lifelong learners. The students’ peers, families, and other stakeholders in their lives acted as a discursive panopticon, urging and expecting their proactive dedication to constant self-improvement and confessions as lifelong learners. Foucauldian hermeneutics of the self played a more significant role in shaping their neoliberal subjectivity. The students demonstrated their intention to make themselves masters of their own lives by practising Foucauldian care of the self. However, their care of the self appeared to lose its radicalism in terms of students forging their own artefacts of aesthetics and unique subjectivity; rather, their care of the self behaviours were mostly employment-oriented. Care of the self, formerly an ancient spiritual exercise, has been reduced to modern-day life maintenance and has been institutionalised as neoliberalism. However, the study participants also sometimes complained about their busy lives as homo economicus, expressing their longing to care for their souls and doubting the meaningfulness of self-maximisation. The participants demonstrated instability in their formation of subjectivities, which means that there exists a fluid and mutable relationship between care of the self and hermeneutics of the self.

Most of the students’ behaviours and mentalities could also be explained as secularised Confucianism. This study innovates by showing that rather than merely responding to the performativity of the job market, students’ dedication to further academic study and engagement in all types of competition and self-improvement activities have their historical roots in Confucianism. The compatibility of the two sets of theories in the present study epitomises how neoliberalism and the culture of traditional China have allied, cooperated, and overlapped in shaping Macau students into subjects of the market as well as Chinese authoritarian traditions.

• Item Type: Thesis (Ed.D)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion; L Education > LB Theory and practice of education; L Education > LC Special aspects of education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Proudfoot, Dr. Kevin and Patrick, Dr. Fiona
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85284
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 02 Jul 2025 14:52
• Last Modified: 02 Jul 2025 14:54
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85284
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85284