Abstract
This chapter argues that neoliberalism, through its bureaucratically led reform frenzy, produces not only identitarian uncertainty amid a politically relatively unorganized academe but also a scientifically legitimized ambivalent discourse that confuses more than clarifies the mission of the university and research. Resistance to neoliberalism is variable. More resistance can be observed from the humanities and the social sciences, from countries in whose self-image globalization plays a modest role, from individuals operating uniquely in their national contexts while less resistance will be found from those disciplines that are linked with economic development, business, or the international, from those countries that are dependent culturally and economically of globalization processes, and from individuals who desire investing in the international.
‘Nobody does the job for which we were formed and that we love. We spend our time fighting to do the job for which we get paid.’
(French university teacher, in EducPros Poll 2014, my translation) (A French website devoted to higher education published by letudiant.fr and the weekly L’Express (http://www.letudiant.fr/educpros))
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Notes
- 1.
Founded in 1989, EUCOR or the University of the Upper Rhine is a tricampus organization involving five French, German and Swiss universities cooperating in the fields of training, research, administration, culture and sport.
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Kauppi, N. (2018). European Academic Identity. In: Toward a Reflexive Political Sociology of the European Union. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71002-0_8
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