POLITICAL CONFLICT

A recent surge of geopolitical conflicts including the authoritarian turn, the migration crisis, Brexit, and the rise of the Global Right create a new constellation of pressures upon the Higher Education sector. Further, the current upheaval in national political governance, exemplified through the successive resignation of Conservative Prime Ministers in the UK, increasingly draconic anti-protest laws, and the dearth of political power allocated to new generations of citizens demanding systemic reform on climate, racial and gender relations, and the economic recession illuminate the failure of contemporary political institutions to capture popular political aspirations. In short, these configurations of conflict indicate an emerging crisis of state.

Analysing this state crisis alongside the contemporary dilemmas of UK Higher Education reveals a rupture in a shared popular and institutional understanding of HE and its public vision and mission. This project will examine 3 areas of conflict that reflect the struggle over the meaning of contemporary HE as a public project.

1) UCU Strikes

2) Decolonisation Movement

3) Academic Freedom