The Colonisation of Higher Education Power, Reproduction, and Student Resistance

  • Cedomir Vuckovic

Student thesis: Phd

Abstract

Student activism has long been an area of significant sociological, historical, and political concern. Much of the existing research in social movement studies has rightly endeavoured to conceptualise and understand mass mobilisations, and other traditional repertoires of protest that students are regularly seen to engage with. However, developments in ‘everyday resistance’ have been neglected in the study of student populations. This is surprising, as contemporary theorising on power would imply that even in periods of apparent quiet, there are still everyday, mundane, and local forms of protest and resistance in contexts like the university, which are laden with multiple competing forms of power. Using a novel dialogue between Jürgen Habermas’ communicative ethics and Foucault’s understanding of power and resistance, this thesis conceptualises neoliberal policy and practice in higher education as symptomatic of the colonisation of the lifeworld by the system. By developing this understanding of the university in conversation with Foucault’s theorising on power, resistance, and subjectivity, this thesis demonstrates that the contemporary nature of higher education has created a range of opportunities for everyday forms of resistance and struggle against mundane forms of power, and in relation to the proximate and everyday symptoms of neoliberalism. Through a multi-sited, qualitative research project conducted in London and Manchester, the thesis reveals the full spectrum of student protest, resistance, and struggle. Research found that students engaged in types of resistance ranging from collective mobilisations against sexual harassment in the form of ‘safe’ and ‘cool’ techno club-nights, to more everyday forms of struggle such as stealing, social withdrawal, and jokes and rumours that targeted everyday experiences of the colonised university such as discourses of employability or precarious student housing. In dialogue with Habermas and Foucault, however, this thesis steps away from the tendency to valorise everyday forms of resistance, recognising instead the ambiguity inherent in power-relations and practices of resistance.
Date of Award6 Jan 2023
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • The University of Manchester
SupervisorNicholas Thoburn (Supervisor) & Andrew Balmer (Supervisor)

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