The production of educational space: Heterotopia and the business university

Abstract

This article responds to recent calls for rethinking management education and fostering a spatial understanding of educational practices. We propose to introduce Foucault’s notion of heterotopic space and the spatial thought of Lefebvre into the debate about the current and future state of business schools. In particular, we conceptually and empirically discuss the potential for understanding space in a way that addresses its productive force, its multiplicity and its inherent contradictions. Using the example of an experimental teaching project dedicated to the conception and physical design of a city of the future, we reflect upon the possibility of the emergence of ‘other’, heterotopic spaces within an institution of management learning. Our findings suggest that spatial interventions facilitate critically affirmative engagement with the business school by offering an imaginative approach to management education.

Restorative Counter-Spacing for Academic Sustainability

“…More specifically, following Beyes & Michels (2011), at an institutional level, it is guided by the question of how universities can open up opportunities for "counter spacing" or "other spacing", which could respectively open up to positive, emancipatory power for its various academic actors. Surprising things could happen in these "other spaces".…”

“…Such a concept represents a means to point to different, other spaces that contest the space we live in, whilst providing a context for action (Steyaert, 2006). Moreover, the paper follows the work of Beyes & Michels (2011) around how a university could develop a generative, process-based, potential heterotopic "other" space. They focus on the example of an experimental, alternative teaching project for 850 newly enrolled students, from across a European business school, who were asked to conceive of and visualize a city of the future, called "FuturoPolis", within five days.…”

The Finnish Team Academy model: Implications for management education

“…They discuss alternative forms of organisation (2009: 241) that `pursue very different ends, in different ways from mainstream business corporations', suggesting that such organisations could lead to a re-think about the way business schools are organised. Many researchers advocate a critical pedagogy approach in order to explore the ideological dimension not only of business but also of the learning environment itself (Beyes and Michels 2011, Cunliffe 2009, Cunliffe and Linstead 2009, Currie and Knights 2003, Fenwick 2005, Reynolds 1999). …”

University, Ltd: Changing a business school

“…There has been much work recently on various aspects of the new university, particularly in the context of the business school and the sort of knowledge that it produces and the labour that it demands (Worthington and Hodgson 2005, Tourish et al 2010, Beyes and Michels 2011, Rowlinson and Hassard 2011, Clark et al 2012. This paper adds to this literature by drawing out some implications of the EBS case, most particularly in terms of the failure of academics to resist the sort of changes that they have so often identified as taking place and not liking very much.…”