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For Italian Law
Iscrizione n.2165 - 13.02.2009 - Registro Stampa Tribunale di Padova

Direttore Responsabile: Giulia Golo

Another University is Possible: Towards an Idea of Meridian University

TitleAnother University is Possible: Towards an Idea of Meridian University
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2019
AuthorsBorrelli D, Gavrila M, Spanò E, Stazio M
Secondary TitleItalian Journal of Sociology of Education
Volume11
Issue3
Pagination16-39
Date Published10/2019
PublisherPadova University Press
Place PublishedPadova, IT
ISSN Number2035-4983
Keywordsevaluation, global competitiveness indexes, higher education, meridian thought, southern theory
Abstract

Abstract: Worldwide university politics take for granted the primacy of Global- Northern paradigm. In the last decades, Higher Education policies have been shaped by global devices of neoliberal governance, such as the Competitiveness Global Index elaborated by the World Economic Forum. We examine the ever encroaching HE evaluation policies and illustrate how, in the framework of the current “Evaluative State”, university has been rebuilt according to the priorities of the “neoliberal market agenda”. What is at stake is a “new spirit of evaluation” that mirrors the current “new spirit of capitalism”. Opposite to the neutral and disembodied models of “ideal-academic”, which treat knowledge as a Northern, white, gendered, middle class monopoly, we argue that “academic quality” displays embedded/embodied features devoid of universalistic issues. Taking inspiration from Raewyn Connell (2019), we propose “another possible university”, appointed with less strict epistemic instances, to rethink Higher Education in terms of some fresh “breaking” ideas: “Meridian thought” (Cassano, 1996), “slowness” (Berg & Seeber, 2016), “multi-versity” (Braidotti, 2013), “subversity” (De Sousa Santos, 2018), “decolonization” (Mbembe, 2016), “deparochialization of research” (Appadurai, 2013).

URLhttp://ijse.padovauniversitypress.it/2019/3/2
DOI10.14658/pupj-ijse-2019-3-2