reproducing hierarchical power structures between those working in academia and their artistic collaborators. According to Pfoser and de Jong, this is so because of the nature of current neoliberal university apparatuses that these partnerships must work within. They argue that overly celebratory accounts render tensions invisible and, instead, propose more comprehensive systemic change, rather than focusing on the challenges and opportunities of individual projects and
Anti-racist scholar-activism raises urgent questions about the role of contemporary universities and the academics who work within them. As profound socio-racial crises collide with mass anti-racist mobilisations, this book focuses on the praxes of academics working within, and against, their institutions in pursuit of anti-racist social justice.
Amidst a searing critique of the university’s neoliberal and imperial character, Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly situate the university as a contested space, full of contradictions and tensions.
Drawing upon original empirical data, the book considers how anti-racist scholar-activists navigate barriers and backlash in order to leverage the opportunities and resources of the university in service to communities of resistance.
Showing praxes of anti-racist scholar-activism to be complex, diverse, and multifaceted, and paying particular attention to how scholar-activists grapple with their own complicities in the harms perpetrated and perpetuated by higher education institutions, this book is a call to arms for academics who are, or would like to be, committed to social justice.
little doubt that we had encouraged more critical world views and ignited a desire for social justice amongst our students. Upon reflection and an analysis of the surveyed views of our students, however, we realised that we had in fact failed to move beyond what we refer to as bounded social change – that is to say, despite developing politically charged sessions, students struggled to see how they could use their critical understanding beyond the immediate context of the neoliberal university. 48 We had not done
either we do truly radical research or we are incorporated into the neoliberal university. I believe that all of us operate in contradictory spaces. Rosa cautions us against viewing ‘radical research’ and the ‘neoliberal university’ as binary opposites, and encourages us instead to recognise our contradictory practices and the contradictions of the university. In doing so, she implies that complicity is not absolute: we are not totally ‘incorporated into the neoliberal university
outside the neoliberal university ’, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographers , 9 ( 2 ): 245–75 . Back , L. and Puwar , N. ( 2013 ) Live Methods , Malden : Wiley-Blackwell . Beebeejaum , Y. , Durose , C. , Rees , J
academics should use their power against, rather than in support of, the ideologies, institutions, structures, and systems that maintain the status quo. In this rendering, in service sits at the very core of anti-racist scholar-activism, serving as an important anchor point for our praxes. The counter-hegemony of the in service orientation of anti-racist scholar-activism becomes more apparent still when viewed in the context of, or in contrast to, the neoliberal university. As we discussed in the book's Introduction, the neoliberalisation of higher
and skills: K. Sellgren, ‘Teaching to the test gives “hollow understanding”’, BBC News , 11 October 2017, available at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41580550 (accessed February 2018). For examples in health: G. Bevan and C. Hood, ‘What's measured is what matters: targets and gaming in the English public health system’, Public Administration , 84:3 (2006), 517–38. 87 L. D. Berg, E. H. Huijbens, and H. G. Larsen, ‘Producing anxiety in the neoliberal university’, Canadian Geographer , 60:2 (2016), 168–80. Of course, this can be extended to
bürgerlichen Welt. Universität in den gesellschaftlichen Reformdiskursen der westlichen Besatzungszonen (1945–1949)’, in H-Soz-Kult, http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/ rezbuecher-21761 (11 March 2014) (accessed 15 February 2016). 28 Peter Uwe Hohendahl, ‘Humboldt Revisited: Liberal Education, University Reform, and the Opposition to the Neoliberal University’, New German Critique, 38:2 (2011), 161; Corine Defrance, ‘Die Westalliierten als Hochschulreformatoren (1945–1949): Ein Vergleich’, in Zwischen Idee und Zweckorientierung: Vorbilder und Motive von