Current global trends suggest a time of exciting possibility for scholars as critical, community-engaged, and participatory epistemologies come to the fore.
Yet, just as possibilities invite academics to broaden and deepen scholarship in ways unimagined a decade before, a parallel shift towards a neoliberal and accountability-focused culture – both in the academy and in society – imperils every new opportunity.
?
In Dissident Knowledge, Noam Chomsky, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Yvonna S. Lincoln, and others delve into the effects of colonialism, neoliberalism, and audit culture on higher education. They present promising avenues of resistance and show how to shape, reinvent, and construct life for faculty in institutions that serve as both a safe harbour and enforcer.
Marc Spooner is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. His research interests include audit culture, academic freedom, the effects of neoliberalization and corporatization on higher education, social justice, activism, and participatory democracy.
James McNinch is professor emeritus and former dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. His research and publications have focused on teaching and learning in higher education, gender and sexual diversity, racism and white privilege, and the social construction of masculinity.