Spectral, Hidden, and Emergent Voices on the Higher Education Landscape in the Republic of Ireland

• In Event: Imagination and Innovation for Sustainable Futures: Education in Challenging Times

Abstract

This paper uses critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2011) to examine multidisciplinary, policy discourses in terms of the “new scalar politics” (Lindgard, 2014) of strategic planning, global rankings and internationalisation in higher education (HE) in Ireland. It uses postmodern/poststructuralist discourses (Lindblad & Popkewitz, 2001) to critically examine the “spectral voices” of state control of public schooling, the “hidden voices” of knowledge production and “the emergent voices” of values contestation, using the following conceptual framework: 1) voice as a grounded and material process, 2) voice as a rights-based valuing of values, and 3) voice as a cultural cauldron for discussing neoliberal views of knowledge and society) (Couldry, 2010). Implications for re-imagining an “ecological university” (Barnett, 2012) in HE will be discussed.

Author

• James G. Deegan, Mary Immaculate College