Neoliberalising the Fordist University: A Tale of Two Campuses in Frankfurt a. M., Germany

Abstract

In 2009, the central building of the new IG Farben Campus of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University (JWGU), Frankfurt, Germany was occupied by students protesting against the neoliberalisation of higher education. While similar occupations at the old Bockenheim Campus were usually tolerated, if not welcomed, by the university management, this time 176 students and members of staff were forcefully evicted after only 3 days, when the university's presidential board called in the police. To better understand this way of ending such protest, a level of oppression almost unheard of at a German university in the last 20 years, we reconstruct the way in which JWGU, as part of the state apparatus university, has produced the two campuses as particular places that are bound up in and expressions of the national and local condensations of forces of Fordism and neoliberalism respectively.

Prekär, flexibel, entgrenzt : Geographien der Arbeit in der "Global City" Frankfurt

“…In den aktuellen Debatten über die Veränderungen im Wissenschaftssystem wird in der Folge von Neoliberalisierungsprozessen eine verstärkte Ökonomisierung von Wissenschaft festgestellt (vgl. Bancherus et al 2009, Belina et al 2013, Hoffmann & Neumann 2003, Meier & Müller 2006, Nowotny et al 2001…”

“…Die Durchsetzung unternehmerischer Praktiken innerhalb von Hochschulen ist vor dem Hintergrund des Regimewechsels vom Fordismus zum Neoliberalismus seit Beginn der 1990er Jahren zu verstehen und geht mit einer verstärkten »Managerialisierung« und organisationalen Wettbewerbsorientierung (New Public Management [NPM]), verstärktem internen Wettbewerb um Ressourcen sowie Orientierung an universitären Rankings einher (vgl Belina et al 2013Maasen und Weingart (2006).…”

Transnational education zones: Towards an urban political economy of ‘education cities’

“…In parallel, a literature that critically explores the role of universities in urban transformations, including (neo-liberal) real-estate projects, has emerged. Recent studies have explored campus developments and realestate projects in the home cities of universities in Europe and the United States (Belina et al, 2013;Bose, 2015;Melhuish, 2019;Van Heur, 2010). The focus in these studies lies on (re-)development projects of universities in close physical proximity to existing campuses.…”

Geopolitics of the Knowledge-Based Economy

“…However, the manner in which universities have become scaled in the face of the dictates of knowledge-intensive capitalism has only recently come under systematic scrutiny (Koch 2014;Moisio and Kangas 2016). This is regrettable given that the scientific, educational and administrative practices of the Fordist-Keynesian national university constitute the substrate through which the essentially "Schumpeterian" and "internationalizing" educational and scientific practices are currently being introduced (see Belina et al 2013).…”

“…It highlights changes that critical human geographers often discuss in terms of neoliberal corporatization of the university (e.g. Castree and Spark 2000;Belina et al 2013). Three aspects in particular are highlighted below.…”