Canadian Higher Education’s Role in Shaping Global Cities as Sites of Racial Imperialist Capitalist Struggle

Abstract

This article maps out the role of Canadian Higher Education (CHE) in producing global cities as sites of struggle for racial imperialist capital. There are two main parts to the argument. One is that production of global cities has become essential to organizing global racial capital. The other is that within Canada, higher education, consisting of systems of universities and community colleges, is essential to producing global cities for monopoly finance capital (that is, global racial capital in its current form). In developing the analysis, the author pays particular attention to Toronto for several reasons: The author lives in Toronto; is faculty member of the University of Toronto where they have taught and studied postsecondary systems; has been active in Toronto grassroots struggles challenging militarized policing, particularly through participating in the No Pride in Policing Coalition working group; and, finally, Toronto is a designated “Global City” and is a key Canadian site of urban “innovation” for imperialist capital. That is, Toronto belongs to a network of “global cities,” each of which contains infrastructure necessary to coordinate the flow of global racial capital. Global cities are therefore “assets” that must be securitized, as evidenced by the intensification of militarized policing and surveillance. The article explains how Canadian higher education, through its systems of universities and colleges, has been shaped to produce “imperialized cities” for global racial capitalism. The author then outlines the abolition work that has been a source of inspiration for “Another University Now!”