For Public Scholarship? Rethinking higher education from the new governmentality to human rights
Su Ming Khoo (NUI Galway)
Abstract
The paper explores some possible meanings of public scholarship within the context of the globalizing higher education. The paper opens with a discussion of the public sociology debate, which provides a backdrop of themes and dilemmas for public scholarship: the tensions between scientific rigour and public relevance; the value of independent conscience and the limits to autonomy, and the place of critique and non-instrumental knowledge. The meanings of ‘publicness’ are examined in relation to three themes: public accountability, the public sphere, and public goods. The paper advances a critique of public accountability as it is currently understood in the context of Irish and global HE. It contrasts the instrumental governmentality of the current efforts to make scholarship accountable against a more nuanced interpretation of accountability that enriches the very publicness of the public sphere through the cultivation of civic virtue and active participation that involves genuine controversy and spirited debate. This suggests an alternative conception of global HE as a democratic-deliberative public sphere and the discussion asks whether Irish HEIs are up to this challenge. Next, a new global public goods approach is proposed (e.g. Kaul et al, 2001), as a substantive underpinning for the conception of public scholarship. Public scholarship means that the ‘goods’ produced by the scholarship should be public in benefits (inclusive), public in decision making (participatory) and public in consumption (fair and just). In conclusion, the paper considers particular methodologies such as participatory action research and particular public goods, such as health and suggests that the critical engagement with human rights presents fruitful ways forward for public scholarship.
References
Burawoy, M (2005a) 2004 American Sociological Address: For Public Sociology British Journal of Sociology Vol 56 Issue 2 pp 259-94.
Kaul, Inge (2001) ‘Public goods in the 21st Century’ in M. Faust et al. Global Public Goods: Taking the Concept Forward New York: UNDP Office of Development Studies Discussion Paper 17.
