This is my selection for student-selected readings for my MA in Cultural and Critical Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.
Ahmed, Sara, ‘Against Students’, The New Inquiry, 29 June 2015 <https://thenewinquiry.com/against-students/> [accessed 20 November 2018].
My selection for student-selected readings is Sara Ahmed’s essay, Against Students, for The New Inquiry. Ahmed is a feminist theorist and critical race theorist in the UK and in this piece discusses the trend in commentary on UK higher education to complain about the conduct and practices of students. The piece is a discussion of how students are perceived to have “become the problem”. Students are excoriated in the press and in internal discussions within higher education discourse for their ‘unreasonable’ demands on universities, for complaining about courses of study, for being over-sensitive in asking for ‘safe spaces’ and ‘trigger warnings’, for protesting against (usually) right-wing speakers, and for demanding action on harassment culture in universities.
Ahmed ties these trends into larger cultural discussions about the influence of neoliberalism in higher education and how biopower is manifested in UK university environments. As both a student in higher education and a worker in a higher education institution, I’m glad that this kind of work is being produced on the influence of neoliberalism on universities and education: critical analyses which acknowledge “the transformation of education into a commodity; of how students are treated as consumers.” Ahmed recognises that we cannot discuss the reactions of students without discussing the larger issue of what they are reacting against i.e. the commodification of education and the adoption of bureaucratic practices like the REF and the TEF which aim to quantify the unquantifiable in order to fit education into a market structure.
Since we’re taking this course in order to learn critical theory and practice, I think it’s important to remember to turn that critical eye on to the environment in which we are learning. It seems important dialectically to critique the higher education environment in which we ourselves are learning to critique and to be mindful of the embedded power relations of the educator-student relationship. Out of the range of critical work on higher education, I chose this piece specifically because of its focus on students and the insight it provides into how students like us are often discussed in higher education discourse. This piece does a good job of contrasting the the neoliberalised student-as-consumer against Ahmed’s framing of the student-as-person-with-agency.
Methodologically, it’s also interesting how Ahmed chooses to “quote from these texts without citing the authors by name.” She seeks to evoke the Other against which she is arguing without personalising them or pointing to individuals. This is an interesting approach when discussing politically contentious issues like safe spaces and sexual harassment. I think it demonstrates the link in Ahmed’s work between her theory and her practice in that she cannot theorise on topics like safe spaces and no-platforming without also depersonalising the work of those speaking against students in her academic practice.
