‘The turn of the screw’; marketization and higher education in England

Holmwood, John

doi:10.1080/08109028.2016.1222128

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(8 reference statements)

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“…Today, however, the contribution of universities to the economy is a much more prominent theme in higher education policy – as exemplified by the title and recommendations of the 2016 White Paper on Higher Education, Success as a knowledge economy (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2016). Changes began, according to John Holmwood’s analysis, as early as 1971, with the Rothschild report advocating that research produced for private benefit should not be funded publicly (Holmwood, 2016, p. 66). However, funding for research and teaching was allocated in a block grant to each university and came without detailed conditions specified for its use until the Research Allocation Exercise (RAE) was introduced in 1986.…”

Section: Shaping Universities In the Uk: State Markets And Collegialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Neo-liberalisation, universities and the values of bureaucracy

Nash

2018

The Sociological Review

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Neo-liberalisation of universities is advancing through a bureaucratic revolution. ‘Marketising bureaucracy’ advances neo-liberalisation through audit and rankings in the name of ensuring value for money and consumer choice. However, bureaucracy in universities is not total, just as neo-liberalisation is a project which advances on an uneven terrain of values. This article argues that to exercise academic autonomy, to continue to value education, we must learn to distinguish between ‘marketising’ and ‘socialising’ bureaucracy. Socialising bureaucracy encodes the ethos of impartiality in practices that support academic judgement – both against marketisation and against abuses of collegiality.

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Section: Shaping Universities In the Uk: State Markets And Collegialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Neo-liberalisation, universities and the values of bureaucracy

Nash

2018

The Sociological Review

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“…The neoliberalisation of higher education has huge implications on how academics are measured and audited, as well as on how they perform (Ball, 2012; Edufactory Collective, 2009; Evans, 2005; Freedman & Bailey, 2011; Gill, 2009; Holmwood, 2011, 2016). There is indeed a sub-field on academic performativity and audit trails (Kenny, 2017; Sayer, 2015; Shore & Wright, 1999, 2015; Strathern, 2000).…”

Section: Performativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Puzzlement of a déjà vu: Illuminaries of the global South

Puwar

2019

The Sociological Review

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The act of decentring established Euro-North American sites and flows of knowledge as longstanding geopolitical anchors of epistemological authority presents déjà vu scenarios, involved in centre-staging processes. The very position of being a messenger from the ‘North’ of knowledge and theory from the ‘South’ can reproduce the same patterns the undertaking seeks to unsettle. The context in which academic performativity is shaped is integral to both the making and taking of space in intellectual circuits of production and circulation. This article considers how centre-staging in academia performatively involves particular features. As a case in point, the focus is on the centre-staging of Boaventura de Sousa Santos (epistemology of the South) and Raewyn Connell (Southern Theory), who have become globally known for insisting on bringing knowledge from the South to the North. The wider ecology of the global circuits of academia, as well as their own performative dramaturgy, constitutes points of observation. A self-enterprising ownership of big global conceptual programmes places them high in the decentring of knowledge. There is a leap frogging over former stocks of published academic knowledge, as well as a centre-staging of knowledge projects, whereby it is they who become the flag bearers of this enterprise. Within this process it is important to recognise who is illuminated. Bibliographic tracks become traced over, in the very ways in which fields are mapped in order to produce a point of intervention.

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“…Such a turn partly relates to the requirements of the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which have increasingly demanded further on‐the‐ground “impact” over the last 15 years. In addition to the REF's well‐documented negative aspects to impact, the REF process closely mirrors a wider neoliberal approach towards the role of research as a marketized, monetised commodity prevalent in current UK universities (Brown & Carasso, ; Holmwood, )…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Experimenting with institutions in a 21st century age of “post‐truth”

Walker

2020

Geography Compass

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This paper contributes to experimental geographies in the context of scientific, research‐based institutions. This focus is under‐explored but increasingly under siege in a “post‐truth”, “alternative facts” and “fake news” era in the US and UK. I respond to the current cultural, political and social challenges presented to institutions against this backdrop, arguing for a solution to these challenges: experimenting with institutions. The paper first outlines how experiments have recently become used in experimental geographies. The paper then applies these understandings of experiments to the context of institutions, arguing for engaging with new, key situations rather than necessarily with key “experts”. The paper lastly explores one example of such experiments, termed “artist‐led institutions”, and their merits for addressing the challenges outlined. I argue these artist‐led institutions demonstrate potential solutions to current institutional difficulties through expanding engagements to include more practitioners and groups rather than just “experts”, as part of a turn towards recognising more forms of expertise, and their value for wider conversations. By engaging with wider groups assembled around key situations rather than “experts”, artist‐led institutions open up the value of conversations as part of the process of knowledge‐making, rather than solely focusing on the production of outputs in pursuit of certified expertise characteristic of scientific, research‐based institutions. In doing so, the paper contributes to a discussion involving experimental geographies and institutions which may yet become increasingly audible in an age of uncertainty, as 21st Century challenges unfold.

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‘The turn of the screw’; marketization and higher education in England

Cited by 11 publications

References 15 publications

Neo-liberalisation, universities and the values of bureaucracy

Neo-liberalisation, universities and the values of bureaucracy

Puzzlement of a déjà vu: Illuminaries of the global South

Experimenting with institutions in a 21st century age of “post‐truth”

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