Using the supply chain bottleneck of the post-covid19 pandemic as a lens, editors of this special issue demonstrate problematic aspects of neoliberal technorationality when applied to educational policy and management. They offer humanism as a counterweight to the problematics of neoliberalism in education and illustrate how local knowledge in spaces of learning are always present, provide visions of different futures and offer potential for transformation outside seemingly totalizing neoliberal discourses.