Our apologies for cross-listings.

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Call for Papers
Globalization/Trade/Neoliberalism/Higher Education
American Association of Geographers 100th Annual Conference
Philadelphia, PA, March 14-19, 2004


Virtually all core institutions associated with higher education are developing and implementing globalization/internationalization policies, programmes, and projects.  At a higher scale, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is beginning to engender the regulatory and discursive reshaping of this "sector".  Higher education is becoming a new "frontier" in the gradual opening up of relatively protected sectors to the dynamics of global capital accumulation.  Needless to say, these processes of change are fraught with contradictions and vociferous debates.

This session aims to explore a range of issues about globalization, neoliberalism, trade, and higher education. At the same time, it is hoped that this session will help spur on more work on the geography of higher education in Geography and related disciplines.  Themes could include:

… globalization, governance, and the rescaling of higher education
… globalization, neoliberalism, and higher education
… the discursive construction of higher education as a "service industry"
… the globalization of private higher education
… the commercialization and instrumentalization of knowledge
… the global assemblages associated with trade in higher education services
… academic capitalism
… the virtual university
… the geopolitics and/or geoeconomics of GATS and higher education
… GATS and free trade agreements vis a vis education services
… national policy debates on GATS and higher education

Please send expressions of interest, questions, or abstracts (less than 250 words) to both of us at the addresses below.  Please respond no later than September 15, 2003.  Your Presenter Identification Number (obtainable from http://www.aag.org/) must be sent to us by September 26th.

Thank you!

Contacts: 

Dr. Kris Olds
Department of Geography
University of Wisconsin-Madison
550 N. Park Street, Science Hall
Madison, WI 53706
USA
Tel: 1-608-262-5685
Fax: 1-608-265-3991
Email: [log in to unmask]

Dr. Susan L. Robertson
Coordinator, Centre for Studies of Globalisation, Education & Societies
Coordinator, GENIE - Globalisation & Europeanisation Network in Education
Editor, Globalisation, Societies and Education
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol
35 Berkeley Sq, Bristol, BS8 1JA
England
Tel. 0117 928 7181
Fax 0117 925 1537
Email: [log in to unmask]