Li, Jin Hui. Shaping Ideals of Future Citizenry in Transnational Higher Education: An Analysis of the Formation of Student Subjectivities in a New Transnational Institutional Environment. Diss. Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2018.
The dissertation explores the relation between transnational higher education, nation-state formation and student subjectivities and identities. This relation is addressed through exploring the processes of construction of student subjectivity and of ideals of future citizenry in a new kind of transnational education. In this new kind of transnational education, it is no longer either the program or the students that are mobile, but ratherboth. The dissertation is theoretically grounded in a Foucauldian framework. It combines different readings and refinements of Foucault’s notion of subject, power and knowledge. These combinations are linked with Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality. The bridging of different readings aim at developing a more issue-specific framework to illustrate the specific aspects of subjectivity processes in this kind of education. It means that the bridging of the different theoretical readings is adjusted to the issues that are empirically found in such transnational education. The investigation has two related layers of focus: the concrete microprocesses of the lived education life of students in such an institution and the policy-historical contextualization of the emergence of such institutions. Two main research questions will guide the two layers: What possibilities for constructing subjectivities and ideals of citizenry appear when students with different national educational experiences meet in a new educational context built on transnational cooperation?And how can we historically understand the emergence of this new education cooperation as part of nation-state building?
The empirical materials consist of pilot interviews with students at the Sino-Danish University Center (SDC), an ethnographical study at the SDC in Beijing for four months and a policy-historical study that contextualizes the emergence of the SDC. At the SDC the students, faculty and staff (primarily) consist of both Chinese and Danes. The explored aspects of subjectivity and future citizenry are in this dissertation operationalized in the following themes: the changing perceptions of significant national cultural practices in education, the students’ reasoning about emotional (re)actions, students’ performances of place-identities in a scaled practice (in which a certain scale ix materializes for instance the national scale) and the historical emergence of this new education cooperation as part of nation-state building.
The analytical findings show that in the transnational educational spaces, students are required to reflect on and narrate themselves as future citizenry more or less explicitly bound to nation-states. These structures are connected to national imaginaries and the racial hierarchies that are part of processes in the transnational educational context. Thus, thisdisplays that although students might not always explicitly articulate their reflections on their future national citizenry, their bodies are marked through the category of nationality and race. In this way, the nationality and race sensitivity in the transnational education becomes part of (re )building the nation-states as part of ‘the West’ and ‘the East’. These findings are contextualized through the policy-historical analysis, as thepolitics of national citizenry in the policies are echoed in the spatial power relations in the transnational education space. The politics of national citizenry for China and Denmark are as well built upon the imaginaries of the nation’s future and its citizenry, something which seems reliant on ‘the global’ and ‘global-national relationships’: The need to have knowledge from abroad becomes essential to the nation-state’s survival. In that way, the student who goes abroad (also through transnational cooperation) is acting as a national citizen. It is a citizen thatachieves knowledge from and about the other nation-states to serve the nation.
The analytical findings also suggest that the sensitivity to nationality and race in the transnational educational institution is interlocked with gender and age. As such, the possibilities to aspire to a certain scaled place-identity, or to be surfaced with certain emotions, are differently produced for female and male students in the transnational context. These differentiated processes are produced in relation to how age is performed in the future aspirations; how the students’ body is inscribed with a gendered age, for instance as having a body with a potential for biological reproduction that is limited by time. Consequently, the dissertation shows that the forms of citizenry fashioned in a transnational educational institution are nationalized and raced/racialized (inflected and articulated with age and gender). In this, the dissertation illustrates that the processes x of subjectivity construction in such a context are played out through different unequal interlockings of power relations. In this way, a microversion of the global power relations and inequalities is processed in the transnational educational spaces.
DANSK RESUMÉ
Afhandlingen undersøger relationen mellem transnational universitets-uddannelse, nationalstatens opbygning (formation) og studerendessubjektivitet og identitet. Denne relation adresseres gennem undersøgelseaf, hvordan studentersubjektivitet og idealet for at være fremtidig borger fabrikeres i en ny type transnational uddannelse. I denne nye type transnational uddannelse er det ikke længere enten uddannelse eller de studerende, som er mobile, men snarere begge dele. Afhandlingen er teoretisk funderet i en Foucault-inspireret begreb-sramme. Den teoretiske ramme kombinerer forskellige læsninger og videre-udviklinger af Foucaults begreb om subjekt, magt og viden i kombination med Crenshaws begreb om intersektionalitet. Målet med at forbinde deforskellige læsninger er at udvikle en mere ’issue’-speficik og -sensitiv begrebs-ramme til at belyse de kontekstuelle aspekter af subjektivitetsprocesser i denne type uddannelse. Det betyder, at kombinationerne er tilpasset de tematikker, der empirisk træder frem i sådan en type transnational uddannelse. Undersøgelsen har to relaterede lag: dels de konkrete mikroprocesser af det levede uddannelsesliv blandt studerende i den transnationale uddannelses-institution og dels en policy-historisk kontekstualisering af opkomsten af sådan en type institution. I sammenhæng hermed guider to hovedforskningsspørgsmål undersøgelsensrespektive lag, nemlig: Hvilke muligheder for konstruktion af subjektivitet og idealer om fremtidige borgere opstår, når studerende med forskellige nationale uddannelseserfaringer mødes i en uddannelseskontekst baseret på trans-nationalt samarbejde? Og hvordan kan vi historisk forstå opkomsten af dette nye uddannelsessamarbejde som en del af nationalstatsopbygning?
Det empiriske materiale for afhandlingen består af pilotinterviews med studerende indskrevet på Sino-Danish University Center (SDC), et etnografisk studie i SDC i Beijing igennem fire måneder og et policy-historisk studie, som kontekstualiserer opkomsten/fremkomsten af SDC. De aspekter af konstruktion af subjektivitet og fremtidige borgere, der er undersøgt i denne afhandling, er operationaliseret gennem følgende xii temaer: Den ændrede opfattelse af betyd-ningen af national-kulturelle praksisser i transnational uddannelse; de studeren-des måde at ræsonnere om emotionelle reaktioner og handlinger; de studerendes performance af steds-identiteter som skalerede praksisser (hvorigennem en be-stemt skala bliver til, som f.eks. det nationale) samt den historiske opkomst af den nye form for uddannelsessamarbe jde som en del af nationalstatsopbyg-ning.
De analytiske fund viser, at i det transnationale uddannelsesrum skal de studerende i mere eller mindre eksplicit grad reflektere over og relatere sig selv som fremtidige borgere på en måde, der er knyttet til nationalstater. Disse strukturer er bundet til imaginære nationale forestillinger (national imaginaries) i sammenhæng med raciale hierarkier, som præger de processer, der finder sted i den transnationale uddannelseskontekst, der her domineres af nationalstaterne Danmark og Folkerepublikken Kina. Det viser sig således også, at selvom studerende ikke altid eksplicit artikulerer deres refleksioner over deres frem-tidige nationale borgerskab, er mønsteret, at deres kroppe er markeret gennem kategorierne nationalitet og race. I den studerede kontekst bliver den na-tionalitets- og raciale sensitivitet i transnational uddannelse en del af (gen)-opbygningen af nationalstater på en måde, der er indlejret i kategorier som ”Vesten” og ”Østen”, og som dermed trækker på raciale hierarkier. Disse fund er kontekstualiseret gennem en policy-historisk analyse. Her genfindes den nationalstatsorienterede identitetspolitik for borgerskab i de magtrelationer, som det transnationale uddannelsesrum udgøres af. For såvel Kina som for Danmark bygges national identitetspolitik for borgerskab på forestillinger om nationens fremtid, hvor borgerskabsidealet er koblet til ’det globale’ og relationen mellem det globale og det nationale. Det at få viden fra udlandet bliver essentieltfor nationalstatens overlevelse. På den måde agerer de studerende, som tager ud i verden (også gennem transnationale uddannelser), som nationale borgere. Det er borgere, som opnår viden fra og om de andre nationale stater for at tjene nationen.
De analytiske fund peger også på, at nationalitets- og racial sensitivitet i den transnationale uddannelsesinstitution er samproduceret ogsammenvævet (interlocking) med køn og alder. Det betyder, at xiiimulighederne for at aspirere til en specifik skaleret steds-identitet og for at blive indholdsudfyldt med parti-kulære emotioner produceres forskelligt for kvindelige og mandlige studerende i den transnationale uddannelseskontekst. Disse differentierende processr finder sted i relation til, hvordan alder performes i forhold til fremtidsaspirationer; hvordan de studerendes kroppe tilskrives en kønnet alder, f.eks. i form af dét at have en krop med biologisk reproduktiv evne, der er tidsbegrænset. På denne baggrund viser afhandlingen, at mulighederne for konstruktion af subjektivitet i den transnationale uddannelseskontekst er bundet til racialiserede og national-statsrelaterede kategorier, som produceres gennem differentierede og ulige ’interlockings’ af magtrelationer. Det transnationale uddannelsesrum ud-spiller på denne vis en mikroudgave af globale magthierarkier, -kampe og ulig-heder
PDF: https://vbn.aau.dk/da/publications/shaping-ideals-of-future-citizenry-in-transnational-higher-educat.