Emma Harden-Wolfson

Below is a call for paper proposals to join a panel I am co-organizing that has been selected for inclusion at the 2019 General Conference of the European Consortium of Political Researchers. Please share this call with your contacts and consider sending us your abstract by January 10th! A pdf version of the proposal is available to download: CfP Geopolitics of Knowledge – ECPR 2019_forcirculation.

ECPR 2019 General Conference, Wrocław, Poland, September 4-7, 2019

Call for proposals to a panel:

Beyond Competition? The Future Geopolitics of Knowledge

(Part of the ECPR Section Knowledge Politics and Policies)

Panel abstract

The geopolitics of knowledge is commonly seen through the lens of global competition (e.g. Marginson, 2010; Rust & Kim, 2012; Hazelkorn, 2017). In this frame, higher education institutions and national/global governance actors compete for prestige both within and between nations, aiming to climb up the global rankings, recruit the best students and scholars and publish in top journals. The rules of the competition have to date been set by the institutions and actors in the North American-European axis and have created ‘universalized, delocalized and depoliticized’ (Shahjahan and Morgan, 2016, 93) spaces into which assimilation may be sought.

Nevertheless, recent global, regional and national developments are challenging the established rules of the game, doing so both by adapting global trends to different locations – emphasizing new places – and by seeking to create new knowledge or employ alternative knowledge traditions – suggesting new power relations.

This panel provides a platform for new thinking and discussion around the shifting dimensions of place and power in the future geopolitics of knowledge. We welcome papers that examine the role of emerging ‘centres’, regions and places of knowledge production, investigate the possibilities for regional associations and organizations to reshape the world academic order, analyse the impact of contemporary political transformations on international knowledge relations, and explore the scope for new or non-conventional theories and methods on researching the geopolitics of knowledge that take us beyond the usual competition lens.

References
Hazelkorn, E. (Ed.). (2017). Global rankings and the geopolitics of higher education: understanding the influence and impact of rankings on higher education, policy and society. London; New York, NY: Routledge
Marginson, S. (2010). Global Comparisons and the University Knowledge Economy. In L. M. Portnoi, V. D. Rust, & S. S. Bagley (Eds.), Higher education, policy, and the global competition phenomenon (pp. 29–41). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rust, V. D., & Kim, S. (2012). The global competition in higher education. World Studies in education, 13(1), 5-20.
Shahjahan, R. A., & Morgan, C. (2016). Global competition, coloniality, and the geopolitics of knowledge in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(1), 92–109.

Panel Chair and Discussants

Chair: Dr Miguel Antonio Lim, University of Manchester, UK

Discussants: Nadiia Kachynska and Emma Sabzalieva, University of Toronto, Canada; nadiia.kachynska@mail.utoronto.ca; emma.sabzalieva@mail.utoronto.ca

How to apply

We will preliminarily select four papers for inclusion in this panel.

Email a Word document to the two panel Discussants – emma.sabzalieva@mail.utoronto.ca and nadiia.kachynska@mail.utoronto.ca – by midnight Eastern Standard Time on Thursday January 10, 2019 with the following information:

Title of your paper:

Abstract (maximum 500 words):

Keywords (3-8) indicating the subject, theme and scope of the paper:

Presenter’s name:

Presenter’s email address:

Presenter’s institution:

If you have a co-author(s), please also include their name(s), email address(es) and institution(s).

Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted.

Section abstract for the Special Interest Group Knowledge Politics and Policies

Knowledge, understood to be the foundation on which societies coalesce and economies thrive, has become central to contemporary politics and policymaking across governance levels. This section is interested in theoretical, empirical, and comparative contributions that investigate the role of politics and policy in the multi-level, multi-issue, and multi-actor governance of knowledge. In focusing on role, we refer to effects that ideas (including political ideologies), actors (both individual and organisational, including political parties and transnational entities), policy instruments, and institutions have on the governance, creation, dissemination, and transfer of knowledge. Panels will be oriented around these roles, key empirical questions, theories or methodologies. The Section continues the work on knowledge policy domains from the past 7 ECPR conferences (previously under the titles ‘Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation’ and ‘Europe of Knowledge’). It continues to welcome scholars, globally and interdisciplinarily, from all theoretical and methodological approaches.