Tina Besley

The Refugee Crisis and The Right to Political Asylum

The right to asylum is a historic right stretching back to Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew civilizations, and the Greek city states that afforded protection against extradition and an inviolable place of refuge to criminals, and debtors from other countries. By the early Christian era, sanctuary was given to those fleeing from religious persecution with refuge in a consecrated place, generally a church. The right of sanctuary was recognized under the Code of Theodosius (399), and later by Roman law under the

Social Exclusion/Inclusion: Foucault's analytics of exclusion, the political ecology of social inclusion and the legitimation of inclusive education

Abstract This article offers a broad philosophical and historical background to the dyad of social exclusion/inclusion by examining the analytics and politics of exclusion first by reference to Michel Foucault who studies the modern history of exclusion and makes it central to his approach in understanding the development of modern institutions of emerging liberal societies. Second, it traces the political ecology (and etiology) of ‘social inclusion’ as a response to the crisis of the welfare state and the French Republican tradition of social solidarity initiated in France by Rene Lenoir and subsequently adopted as a fundamental principle for the European social model. Third, it provides a philosophical discussion of inclusive education that draws the distinction between the legal and moral legitimation of rights and questions the moral justifications (or the lack of them) offered for the right to inclusive education.

Interculturalism, Ethnocentrism and Dialogue

We are delighted to introduce this special issue of Policy Futures in Education, which began when we were working together with our friend and colleague Professor Jiang Xaioping (Isadora) in Guangzhou in March 2010, setting up the Centre for Intercultural Education and Dialogue at Guangzhou University in the People’s Republic of China. Professor Jiang is Associate Dean of the School of Foreign Studies at Guangzhou University and Director of the new centre. We reviewed the way Europe has been handling interculturalism, diversity and globalization, and decided to call for papers for this special issue focusing on the Council of Europe’s (2008) White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue: ‘living together as equals in dignity’. We asked contributors to provide papers that either directly responded to the White Paper or indirectly picked up issues and concerns around the notion of ‘intercultural dialogue’ as formulated in the White Paper. With many people responding, we have been able to select an impressive and wide range of papers to highlight both of these aspects in a diverse set of articles that includes discussions about interculturalism and dialogue within Europe and in the wider world.

The theatre of fast knowledge: performative epistemologies in higher education

All the worlds a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances… —Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. —Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “Conclusion.”

Global Financial Crisis and educational restructuring

“Financialisation” is a term that describes an economic system or process that attempts to reduce all value that is exchanged (whether tangible, intangible, future, or present promises, etc.) either into a financial instrument or a derivative of a financial instrument. The original intent of financialization is to be able to reduce any work product or service to an exchangeable financial instrument. It is an aspect of increased symbolization, mathematization, and computerization of financial markets that are trends within knowledge capitalism. Neoliberalism is an expression of the power of finance that has gathered pace with the internationalization of capital and the globalization of markets. Some scholars suggest that neoliberalism and globalization are themselves expressions of finance, closely tied to the development of derivatives markets and the evolution of an international financial system where the international rentiers have managed to significantly increase their share of national income on the basis of systematic fraud, corruption, and widespread criminalization of financial practices. The current financial crisis is a systemic crisis of the entire capitalistic system based on interconnected global financial markets. This is a fundamental shift that represents the financialization of the reproductive sphere of life itself. Under this regime, the monopolization and privatization of knowledge and education has proceeded rapidly. One of the effects of financialization and the economic crisis has been to popularize a debate on budget cuts and “austerity politics” across the board for public services provided at the state level with massive cuts to education in all aspects, attacks on collective bargaining, and the sacking of thousands of teachers. This paper will explore education in the age of financialization and the Global Financial Crisis.

The Creative University

The idea that the university needs re-imagining has gained considerable currency since the 21st century. Just why this should be needs some analysis and an examination of the functions and role(s) of universities. Some universities, especially in USA, have recently conducted exercises to achieve this in specific ways that deal with local issues (e.g. Cornell, Harvard, Minnesota, New York, Brown1).

Postdigital science and education

We are increasingly no longer in a world where digital technology and media is separate, virtual, ‘other’ to a ‘natural’ human and social life. This has inspired the emergence of a new concept—‘the postdigital’— which is slowly but surely gaining traction in a wide range of disciplines including but not limited to the arts (Bishop, Gansing, Parikka, & Wilk, 2017 ; Monoskop, 2018), music (Cascone, 2000), architecture (Spiller, 2009), humanities (Hall, 2013 ; Tabbi, in press), (social) sciences (Taffel, 2016), and in many inter-, trans-, and post-disciplines between them (Berry & Dieter, 2015). Through this research, the term postdigital is slowly entering academic discourse. The University of Edinburgh’s Center for Research in Digital Education is seriously considering rebranding toward the postdigital (Bayne & Jandric, 2017, p. 204, see also Jandric, 2017, p. 201) ; Coventry University recently established the Center for Postdigital Cultures (Coventry University, 2018) ; authors of this editorial are editors for the forthcoming journal Postdigital Science and Education

Children in Crisis: Child Poverty and Abuse in New Zealand

Child poverty constitutes a generalized global crisis in both so-called developing and advanced economies. The impact of neo-liberal policies and the impacts of the 2008/ 9 global economic crisis on child poverty has been devastating (Minujin & Nandy, 2012). Structural adjustment policies have been seen as a major cause of poverty (George, 1990) with almost half the world’s population living on less then

Islam and the End of European Multiculturalism? From Multiculturalism to Civic Integration

2.50 per day, and 80% living on less than

Marx and Foucault: Subjectivity, Employability and the Crisis of Youth Unemployment in the Great Global Recession:

10 per day. Too often western countries have dismissed such as issues within the developing world. However, the alarming trend is that child poverty levels in advanced economies have also increased markedly with clear consequences for the health and cognitive development of children, the huge social costs associated with long-term unemployment and poverty, the effects on educational achievement and the prospects of future citizenship. Child poverty is more than just an economic issue, being also both a philosophical and an educational problem especially when framed as a global issue and approached through a human rights perspective. The very issues of distribution (preand redistribution) is tied to a notion of justice, at least in the liberal tradition, and questions of growing inequality, lack of access to education and to adequate housing and employment has shaped the various discourses of poverty in both their welfare state and neoliberal policy orientations. As Vigdis Broch-Due and John-Andrew McNeish (2004–7) note in their project ‘Poverty Politics: Current Approaches to its Production and Reduction’: