Knowledge As Value : Illumination Through Critical Prisms, 1570-7113 (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries ; V. 50 )

Knowledge as Value Illumination through Critical Prisms

At the Interface

Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Nancy Billias

Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Professor Margaret Chatterjee Dr Wayne Cristaudo Dr Mira Crouch Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Dr Jones Irwin Professor Asa Kasher

Owen Kelly Dr Martin McGoldrick Revd Stephen Morris Professor John Parry Professor Peter L. Twohig Professor S Ram Vemuri Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

Volume 50 A volume in the At the Interface series ‘The Value of Knowledge’

Probing the Boundaries

Knowledge as Value Illumination through Critical Prisms

Edited by

Ian Morley and Mira Crouch

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008

The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2438-0 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008 Printed in the Netherlands

Contents Introduction

PART I

ix

Critical Questions Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies in Australian Universities

1

John McDonald Counting the Currency of Knowledge: New Zealand’s Performance-Based Research Fund

23

Grant Duncan Conceptions of Knowledge and the Modern University Francine Rochford

43

Knowledge as Practice: Implications for the Tertiary Sector

63

Stephen Healy PART II

Substantive Matters The Anxiety of Making Academics Over: Resistance and Responsibility in the Academic Development Project Tai Peseta & Catherine Manathunga

79

The Internet, the Knowledge Product, & the Craft of History 95 Ian Morley “Most Intellectuals Will Only Half Listen”: The Needs and Futures of Hip-Hop Studies Graham Chia-Hui Preston

109

Knowledge Value through Management

125

S. Ram Vemuri

PART III Epistemological Issues Making the Structures Tumble

137

Mireta von Gerlach The Classics & Australian Culture Wars Mark Rolfe

149

The Mutation of Economics Matthew Steen

167

Pericles was a Plumber: Towards Resolving the Liberal and Vocational Dichotomy in Legal Education

189

Craig Collins Explaining the Complexities and Value of Nursing Practice and Knowledge 209 Heather McKenzie, Maureen Boughton, Lillian Hayes, & Sue Forsyth

Notes on Contributors

225

Welcome to an At the Interface Project Knowledge as Value appears within the At the Interface project series of research meetings and publications. They explore the explicit and implicit understandings of the place of knowledge in contemporary society. Once upon a time the value of “knowledge for its own sake” was taken for granted; indeed, it represented the highest ideal of the progressive notion of education as a process that not only taught “for” and “about” something, but, most importantly, was deeply engaging as it enlightened and ennobled. Arguably, in recent decades there has been a move away from that position, most particularly so with respect to higher education. If true, what are the values that currently underwrite the structures and practices of education, especially in the tertiary sector? More broadly, what are the social and cultural factors that underlie these values? Key themes to be assessed will include; 1. Has there been a change in the philosophy of education and the valuing of knowledge - or is what we now have merely an attrition of these? Is educational leadership unduly pragmatic? What is the role of expediency at the coal face of learning? 2. What are the different meanings of the slogan "Life-Long Learning"? What moral, practical and educational principles underlie this idea? 3. Is knowledge a commodity? What, if anything, is the difference between knowledge and information? Is teaching (still) a vocation? 4. As the result of the plethora of information offered by the various search-engines, do we know more and understand less? Does information retrieval via the Internet affect differentially knowledge and understanding in different fields? Does the Internet implicitly emphasise output rather than input? 5. Are we developing ideals and values that are more meaningful to most people living in the contemporary, increasingly global, world? 6. What is the nature and purpose of higher education?

Dr Robert Fisher Inter-Disciplinary.Net http://www.inter-disciplinary.net

Knowledge as Value: Illumination through Critical Prisms Mira Crouch and Ian Morley The chapters in this book examine, from a number of perspectives, the ways in which the place and value of knowledge are understood in contemporary society. At first glance, this may seem an odd topic for inquiry since it appears obvious that knowledge – in both its particular and general forms – plays a most important part in all walks of life. “Knowledge”, however, is not a self-evident concept; for one thing, both its denotations and connotations are historically situated; in antiquity, for example, immutable knowledge was thought to be imparted by impeccable authority – a view which, overall, does not prevail today. By contrast, in our not so distant a past, knowledge was a matter of discovery through personal effort, and "knowledge for its own sake" was a taken-for-granted ideal. Indeed, this ideal underwrote our conception of progressive education as a process which not only taught "for" and "about" something, but, most importantly, also engaged the very soul as it enlightened and ennobled it. While this ideal has not been explicitly rejected, in recent decades there appears to have been a tacit move away from a strong emphasis on its centrality, especially in higher education, including even the social sciences and humanities, the home of the traditional “enlightening” disciplines. If this be the case, we may well ask: what are the values that underwrite the structures and practices of education as they presently are – and, more generally, how do they penetrate knowledge production in its various forms? What are the social and cultural factors that underlie these values? These are very general questions the answers to which cannot be sought directly; rather, they must be gleaned through analyses of particular circumstances and searched for in the interface among those circumstances. The present volume is by no means exhaustive of the questions relevant here. Rather, its thirteen chapters are merely indicative of some of the work that needs to be done so that we can come to comprehend – and perhaps try and improve – our relationship to learning and knowledge in the 21st Century. Since all the contributors are academics working and teaching in the social sciences and humanities, most of the chapters address those aspects of knowledge that are central to research and teaching in those disciplines at tertiary level. As well, with one or two exceptions, the authors are located in Australia. Given the increasingly stringent conditions which have governed academic work in Australian Universities for the past decade or so, it comes as no surprise that a number of chapters in this volume are

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Introduction

______________________________________________________________ cast within a critical frame of reference. These chapters feature in the first section of the book, aptly titled “Critical Questions”. Here we have four contributions. First up, John McDonald provides a significant piece of substantive research across the whole spectrum of Australian universities, thus teasing out a theme that underlies many other chapters in this book – i.e. the degree to which academics are prevented, by the structures within which they have to operate, from engaging effectively in debates about the very role of the university. In Grant Duncan’s paper, the theme of constraint is considered in the context of academic work itself: on the one hand, the performance measures in current use are shown to be barriers to academics’ power of genuine inquiry – but, on the other, the paper also argues for both the need for, and the possibility of, the insertion of a moral voice into the systemic processes governing research. These systemic processes that steer the construction of knowledge are also the focus of Francine Rochford’s contribution; in particular, Rochford demonstrates the influence on these processes of perceptions concerning the type of knowledge required by industry, which, in turn, leads to universities overselling what they do not do best. Stephen Healy rounds off this section in a paper which traces the commodification of knowledge under external pressures that target specific knowledge outputs. In the first section of the book there is a strong suggestion that the very process of knowledge generation has been altered through pressures from externally enforced changes. The second group of chapters, under the title “Substantive Matters”, considers some ways through which academics have viewed, and tried to adapt to, some of those changes. Crucial to such adaptation is academic development, to which Tai Peseta and Catherine Manathunga give their attention in a thought-provoking paper about resistance and responsibility involved in the process of “making academics over”. In relation to a specific discipline, Ian Morley takes History as an example of a field of knowledge that has been affected by information technology, and discusses ways in which this influences can be rendered advantageous in the teaching of young people for whom information technology is in any case already a way of life. A young person himself, Graham Preston further demonstrates the inevitability of information technology’s influence, not only as a tool but as a very constituent of new knowledge. Preston takes the example of hip-hop studies and argues for the academic legitimacy of this topic on the grounds of its link with new literacies emerging under the influence of the Internet, as well as its interaction with the global flow of sound. The implicit emphasis on a broad epistemology in these three contributions is made explicit in Ram Vemuri’s paper which makes the case for diversified policies governing the management of knowledge. It is possible, the author suggests, even in the

Introduction

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______________________________________________________________ current system of rigidly rationalised criteria, to foster attitudes that would allow knowledge pluralism to flourish. The third section of the book – “Epistemological Issues” – comprises papers that address specific circumstances in the generation and promulgation of knowledge. Mireta Van Gerlach examines a particular historical event in order to show that ultimately “thoughts are free”, and that it is possible for individuals to break through self-imposed constraints on their understandings of the world. Also in a historical frame of reference, Mark Rolfe counterposes Menzies and Howard and their respective application of knowledge of the classics – in other words, ‘Culture’ – to political discourse about democracy. The decline of reflection in the discipline of economics is explored by Matthew Steen whose paper points to the value of knowledge that has been lost through devaluation of inquiry by systemic imperatives. The need for depth in disciplinary understanding is further underscored by Craig Collins who argues for the teaching of core knowledge at entry levels. This discussion is supported by insights from developmental psychology. As the metaphor in the title of the paper suggests, the fact that Pericles was a plumber (also) does not imply that working effectively as the latter is a sufficient condition for being the former – though it is a necessary one. While Craig Collin’s paper sets this problematic in the context of the law, Heather McKenzie and her colleagues wrestle with very similar issues in relation to nursing through their analysis of the difficulties involved in the articulation of the knowledge base of an emerging academic discipline caught between the old medical establishment and the new knowledge bureaucracies. All our contributors – each in his or her own way – have dealt with matters that are germane to the circumstances of knowledge and knowledge production and dissemination in contemporary society. We are grateful to them for having grappled with some fundamental issues and put forward important arguments. We hope that these will open up discussions across a field of concerns that is much broader than our selection of papers has been able to cover.

Part I Critical Questions

Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies in Australian Universities John McDonald There is general agreement that intellectual freedom and academic independence are under threat. This paper reports on a critical analysis of industrial agreements and policies concerning intellectual freedom at Australian universities. Using a critical policy analysis approach, these policies can be seen as the product of a contest over central values: policies are authoritative statements by those with power - such as senior executives and university councils - that bind academics to act in particular ways. In this study, the official policies of 37 publicly-funded universities in Australia are thematically and critically analysed to answer the following questions: (1) What meanings of intellectual freedom can be discerned? (2) What responsibilities are articulated and what institutional supports are provided? (3) What conditions and restrictions are placed on academics in exercising intellectual freedom? and (4) What broader goals of academic work are implicit in these policies? The analyses reveal that, as a principle, academic freedom is not universally recognised, and that, as a set of rights, it is highly contingent and contradictory. Institutionally-based industrial agreements about academic freedom are unworkable. To redress this, academic freedom first must be unambiguously articulated in a national statement incorporated in Australia’s Higher Education Act. Keywords: Academic freedom, intellectual freedom, higher education, critical policy analysis. 1.

Introduction The definitions of academic or intellectual freedom are hotly contested: there is no consensus in the literature about the precise meanings of the terms, 1 or, the universal legal status of these freedoms or, consequently, the implications of the definitions for the rights and responsibilities of academics and universities.2 Some argue that academic freedom is not a transcendent or universal value, but is “specific, contextual and contested”,3 with the contest over its meaning being played out on “shifting ground according to novel rules”,4 such as the entanglement of academic freedom with intellectual property rights. Neither are debates about academic freedom a recent phenomenon. Disputes over academic freedom have been recorded in Australia since the first university was established in 1850. For instance, a 1902 Royal Commission into the University of Melbourne heard evidence about the non-reappointment of a music professor because he had “upset the Melbourne establishment and many of the senior

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Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________ academics with his writings, including his poetry.”5 The suppression of intellectual thought and expression in Australia has, at times, been solidly documented.6 Despite contest over its meaning, there is international agreement that intellectual freedom in universities is under serious, sustained and systematic threat. The chief sources of threat have been identified as the reengineering of universities as corporate entities, the concentration of executive power and the undermining of academic self-governance,7 the intensification of time and workload pressures on academics,8 industry research partnerships that construct public knowledge as intellectual property,9 ministerial interference in the peer-review process of awarding research grants, the encroachment of capitalism and commercial imperatives,10,11 sedition laws in Australia that restrict freedom of speech and research,12 attempts to displace tenure with individual workplace contracts,13 increased government interference in the operations and activities of universities, and the shrinking of the public sphere in which academics can exercise their freedoms.14 Public intellectuals are now under direct attack; in the United States of America, for example, virulent campaigns are being waged against outspoken scholars, with the public naming of the “101 most dangerous professors”.15 Analyses such as these have helped to sharpen our understanding about the constitutive elements of academic freedom. The concept of intellectual freedom appears to turn on three central axes: (1) academic freedom as freedom to and freedom from; (2) academic freedom as a set of rights and associated responsibilities; and (3) academic freedom as exercised by individual scholars and as institutional autonomy. The first axis distinguishes between the special liberties traditionally afforded scholars (such as the freedom to conduct disinterested, critical inquiry and make public comment), and freedom from the corrupting influences of political or commercial interests. The second axis codifies academic freedom as a set of rights balanced by a set of responsibilities to one’s discipline (such as the ethical pursuit of knowledge and truth) or to one’s institution. The final distinction is between the individual and the institution: the exercise of academic freedom must be buttressed by institutional structures that protect self-governance and collegial decision-making. This framework sheds some conceptual light, and may assist in finer analysis about the bases of and threats to academic freedom. Approaches to the scholarly investigation of intellectual freedom in Australia have included case study analyses of suppression and dissent,16 surveys of academics’ perceptions and experiences,17 personal accounts of infringements on academic freedom,18 and, more recently, examination of legislation and employment contracts to ascertain whether there is a legal basis for academic freedom.19-21 There is another timely and potentially

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_____________________________________________________________ fruitful line of inquiry: critical policy analysis. Provisions for academic freedom are now more commonly being incorporated into employment contracts in Australian universities. Analysing the universities’ stated policies on academic freedom yields insights into the ideological and transformative work of language.22 Language shapes perceptions and reproduces prevailing ideologies and structures. Policy language is not neutral. It is politicised.23 It is deployed by those in power to “actively construct(s) the truths it purports to describe.”24 From this approach, policy is not viewed as the product of a pluralistic, rational, decision-making process, but as a result of political struggle and as a site of ideological contestation. 2.

Method Almost every publicly-funded Australian university has an articulated policy position about intellectual freedom. The text is generally in the public domain, accessible on universities’ websites, and incorporated into mission statements, codes of professional and ethical conduct, and, most commonly, enterprise agreements. Because policies are historically contingent, it is necessary here to offer some background information about enterprise agreements. These agreements have been struck under the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Workplace Relations Requirements) Bill 2005. This legislation was a further attempt by the federal Liberal government to intervene in university operations, by linking university’s core funding to the implementation of Australian Workplace Agreements - in effect, individual workplace contracts that stripped away minimum awards and safeguards. Through 2005 and 2006, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) led an intense, protracted, and at some campuses, bitterlyfought but ultimately successful, campaign to secure union-negotiated collective agreements that met the requirements of the legislation. The NTEU’s long-standing resolution on academic freedom has been to push for an amendment to the Higher Education Act which guarantees intellectual freedom to all staff and students, and to promote and support the role of universities as “critic and conscience” of society.25 The fallback position has been to lobby for inclusion of these guarantees in enterprise agreements. The procedure for data collection initially entailed a web search of the enterprise agreements for each of the 37 universities. Sections pertaining to intellectual freedom were copied for analysis. If there was reference to a linked document such as an existing code of conduct or policy on intellectual freedom,26 this was accessed and copied. Through these means, I was able to obtain relevant data for 35 of the 37 publicly funded universities in Australia. For the two remaining universities, I conducted a keyword search on their policy domains and then across their entire website. I could find no relevant references on the University of Tasmania’s website. The final university Australian Catholic University - includes brief mention of academic freedom

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Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________ as a “key value”, though a recent paper by the Vice Chancellor alludes to the tension between “being Catholic and being a good university”, which “revolves around the practice of the principles of academic freedom and academic autonomy”.27 This paper poses four research questions pertaining to the critical analysis of policies on intellectual freedom at Australian universities: (1) What meanings can be discerned? (2) What responsibilities are articulated and what institutional supports are provided? (3) What conditions and restrictions are placed on academics in exercising intellectual freedom? and, (4) What broader goals of academic work are implicit in these policies? 3.

Meanings of Intellectual Freedom To commence data analysis, I thematically analysed the policy content pertaining to academic freedom at the 37 universities. This is presented in Table One. A scan over this table confirms that there are commonalities but no universalities in the meaning of intellectual freedom. The recurrence of certain words and phrases - such as “critical and open inquiry” - in the policy documents may be due, in part, to the influence of the NTEU in enterprise bargaining rounds, but also owes something to the rhetorical narratives surrounding academic freedom. Six distinct meanings of intellectual freedom can be identified. Here they are analysed and illustrated with examples extracted from the policy documents. A. Intellectual Freedom: A Defining Character of Scholarly Work? Surprisingly, only nineteen of the 37 universities can be considered to offer broad statements of support - to varying degrees - for the principle of academic freedom. This is represented in the first three columns of Table One as either a general statement of support, or the assertion that academic freedom is a defining character of a university, or that it must be protected and promoted. On the softer side, there is acknowledgement from Charles Sturt University that academic freedom is recognised as a “traditional role of academics.” Nine universities issue a commitment to “the principles of protecting and promoting intellectual freedom.” However, only seven universities go further to declare that “guarantees of intellectual freedom are essential to the proper functioning of university culture” (for example, James Cook University), or that scholarly freedoms are an “essential feature of University work” (Edith Cowan). B. The Right to Critical and Open Inquiry Twenty-one of the universities mention that academic freedom includes the right to “critical and open inquiry.” There is no further explanation in any of the documents about the exact meaning of this stock phrase. Within the social sciences and education, the word ‘critical’ has a

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_____________________________________________________________ particular meaning that is typically associated with critical pedagogies, critical discourse and critical theory. While some have argued that it is exactly these approaches that are needed to counter the threats to academic freedom,28 it is unlikely that this is what is meant! Presumably, ‘critical’ inquiry is used more broadly to imply that academics have a right (but not quite a responsibility) to perform two tasks: as a critic, to apply their expertise to make reasoned judgements about the veracity or merits of phenomena; and/or to question the taken-for-granted, prevailing assumptions, arrangements, ideas, interests and practices of the world. The reference to inquiry that is ‘open’ is somewhat more ambiguous. It could mean that there are no restrictions placed on the sorts of questions that an academic may pose. If so, this ignores how the articulation of National Research Priorities conceals certain public issues from scrutiny,29 and the repercussions for academics of Australia’s Anti-Terrorism legislation.30 It could mean that a scholar’s work must be unfettered, not tainted by commercial or political interests. It could mean that because universities are partially funded through the public purse, a scholar must account publicly for his or her work. Finally, ‘open’ could refer to traditional ideals about the contribution of academics to the public, non-propertied stock of knowledge. The push for the propertisation of academic work is rapidly undermining such cherished ideals.31 None of these meanings stand unchallenged in today’s university environment. C. Participation in Public Debate Thirty of the 37 universities make some mention of participation in public debate. Thirteen of these recognise the right of academics to “participate in public debate and express opinions” with no stipulated restrictions on the topic or issue. Twenty universities specify limitations concerning academic or professional expertise. For example, Flinders University restricts scholars’ participation in public debates and the expression of opinions and ideas to those “related to their academic and professional areas.” Macquarie draws the line at “the limits of their professional competence and professional standards”, while Southern Cross University allows public comment in areas that relate “directly to the academic or other specialised subject area.” The more liberal University of Queensland permits public debate and opinion about “issues and ideas related to their discipline area.” The limitations are open to interpretation. What is the distinction between an academic and a professional area of expertise? The very idea of what it means to be a professional is hotly debated. What are the defining criteria for expertise? Is it when one has read and thought sufficiently about a topic? Or is it when one has been published in a peerreviewed journal? If so, given the time lag for publication, academic comment will trail way behind on topical issues. How does one know when

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Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________ one has reached the limits of his or her professional competence? When one’s views are denounced as heretical? All these questions are vital to debate because policy language works to shape perceptions, ideologies, and structures. The words influence our understandings about what is and isn’t allowed. D. The Role as Critic and Conscience New Zealand and Ireland number among the countries which have passed national legislation recognising the legitimate role of universities as “critic and conscience of society.”33 No Australian university has employed this language in its policy documents, although a few do include similar sentiments. Monash University, for instance, is notable for its stance in encouraging academics to participate not only in public debate but also “advocacy”. Moreover, these activities can extend beyond one’s areas of expertise to include “more general areas relating to social justice, human rights, education and a sustainable environment.” Charles Sturt University recognises the role of academics in “making informed comment on societal mores and practice, and in challenging held beliefs, policies and structures, within their discipline area.” James Cook University urges its academics to consider unorthodox perspectives: “the exploration of unconventional views is not merely tolerated but encouraged.” There are, in fact, a mere fifteen Australian universities that acknowledge the right of scholars to express unpopular or controversial views. E. Academic Freedom to Voice Opinion about the University Sixteen universities recognise the right of staff to enter debates and express their opinions about higher education or tertiary education policies generally. Fewer still - only eight - permit academics to make public comment about their own university. At Edith Cowan and Sydney University, for example, staff can “participate in public debates and express opinions about issues and ideas … about the institution within which they work or higher education issues more generally.” The University of Queensland permits staff to voice their opinion about the University. However, this did not help Associate Professor George Lafferty, an outspoken critic of the university’s plan to introduce full fees for students. He became President of the local branch of the NTEU in July 2002. One month later, his contract was not renewed. 34 At Charles Darwin University opinions must be kept inhouse: employees have “the right to express opinions about the operations of the University in internal University forums.” Quarantining one’s university from criticism is an executive strategy designed to protect the university’s public image, given the competitive and entrepreneurial pressures that today characterise the higher education marketplace. Melbourne University, for one, does not accede to staff the right to make public comment about the

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_____________________________________________________________ university. This, however, did not prevent the publication of a book - one of the authors is a professorial associate of the University - that was highly critical of the then Vice-Chancellor and the University Council about their costly commercial experiment to set up Melbourne University Private.35 The staff at Monash, yet another university with the same policy stance as Melbourne, could not be silenced in their condemnation of Vice-Chancellor David Robinson’s management style and his history of plagiarism: “Concerned staff expressed their outrage, first at underground level and then more publicly and in doing so, contributed to the momentum which helped seal Robinson’s fate.”36 F. Participation in university governance and representation Fifteen universities recognise the right of academic staff to be represented in appropriate fora and to participate in university decisionmaking. For example, the Queensland University of Technology acknowledges the general right of staff to “participate in established decision making structures and processes within the University”. The University of Western Australia espouses an even stronger commitment to democratic principles: “the University will encourage employees to participate actively in the operation of the institution” and, while not ruling out “in camera” committee sessions, will ensure that “all governing bodies operate in a transparent and accountable manner, encouraging freedom of expression and thought.” The University of Wollongong limits its staff to “participation in an appropriate form in decision making processes and structures germane to their field of expertise and onus of responsibility within the university.” Noble though these principles may sound, they are little more than a concession to by-gone times. Over the past ten years, Australian universities have been thoroughly re-modelled as corporate entities. Vice-Chancellors are effectively Chief Executive Officers. It is “executive-centred governance rather than a council or a professoriate” that wields power.37 Many of the socalled collegial decision-making fora are now little more than consultative mechanisms for senior executives. 4.

Academic Responsibilities and Institutional Safeguards Academics’ rights are set against a range of countervailing duties. Four universities declare that a fundamental responsibility is an honest search for truth and knowledge. At La Trobe University “intellectual freedom carries with it the duty of staff members to use the freedom in a reasonable manner consistent with a responsible and honest search for, and dissemination of, knowledge and truth.” In a similar vein, Adelaide University, for example, requires staff to conduct their research in accordance with “the principles of intellectual rigour, scientific enquiry, research ethics” and to exercise their freedom “in a manner consistent with the scholarly

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______________________________________________________________ obligation to base research and teaching on an honest search for knowledge.” Lest this all sound too noble, staff also must ensure “compliance to contractual obligations”. A further duty required of staff at six universities is “collegiality.” At Flinders, staff are expected to “participate in collegial processes”. At the University of Western Australia, staff will, “In the exercise of Intellectual Freedom … act in a professional and ethical manner and will not harass, vilify, intimidate or defame the institution or its employees.” Similar sentiments are apparent in enterprise agreements at the University of Queensland. Institutional safeguards are vital to ensure that the principles of academic freedom are more than empty rhetoric. Few universities - Edith Cowan and La Trobe among them - specifically recognise that staff are free from institutional censorship. For example, La Trobe University “places no constraint on the right of University staff freely to express opinions in their private capacities as members of society.” This matter is bound up with the broader issue discussed earlier regarding the right to make public comment, which is generally restricted to those topics in which the academic has achieved “expertise.” In such circumstances, academics are permitted to attach their position and the university’s name to the public commentary. Where expertise has not been claimed or recognised, an academic is not permitted to use the name of the university. At Southern Cross University, the condition is expressed thus: “the employee may use the University's name and address and give the title of his or her University appointment in order to establish his or her credentials.” The use of the university’s name in public comment is a highly contentious issue. The Vice-Chancellor of James Cook University equates the University’s name to a trademark: I think it’s the added weight to what you’re saying that we’re worried about, it’s the use of a trademark. People who own the Coca-Cola trademark don’t want to have people bottling just anything and putting Coca-Cola on it. And we don’t want people just saying or doing anything and putting the JCU trademark on it.38 Following highly publicised allegations of racist comments by a staff member at Macquarie University, the Acting Vice-Chancellor issued a media release apologising for opinions publicly expressed in the name of the University’, reiterating a commitment to academic freedom, but clarifying that ‘staff must not give the impression that they are acting in an official University capacity unless they are authorised to do so. 39

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_____________________________________________________________ Trademark protection is further evidence of executives’ sensitivity to market image in the business of higher education. At nine universities, staff exercising their academic freedoms are entitled to do so without fear of harassment or intimidation. At the University of Western Sydney, academics can “participate in professional and representative bodies and to engage in community service without fear of harassment, intimidation or unfair treatment.” The same applies at Central Queensland University when staff express “unorthodox or unpopular opinions.” At the University of New South Wales, all rights may be exercised “without fear of harassment, intimidation or unfair treatment.” Six universities refer to established grievance procedures for dealing with alleged limitations to the rights of academic freedom. Most, if not all, Australian universities have grievance procedures, but it is notable that only six make specific reference to appeal mechanisms concerning academic freedoms in the enterprise agreements. 5.

Additional Restrictions on Intellectual Freedom As can be seen from the foregoing discussion, the meaning of intellectual freedom is contestable, and its application and interpretation is highly contingent. In addition to the range of restrictions identified above, a number of universities apply broader conditions on academic freedom. At Flinders University, for example, academics are enjoined to do their work in a way which “supports, enhances and does not detract from the University’s strategic goals and objectives.” Exactly what these goals and objectives are, and how they are applied, can have far-reaching consequences for academic freedom. Flinders’ staff are also reminded that their academic freedoms may run up against the University’s claims to propertise knowledge: participation in public debate “notwithstanding the University’s intellectual property rights, will ordinarily include rights to publish the results of their academic work.” At my own university (Ballarat), commercial imperatives potentially impinge: the University recognises the rights of academics to “pursue critical and open inquiry and to freely discuss, teach, assess, develop curricula, publish and research unless the employee is specifically prohibited by commercial–in–confidence contracts entered into by the university.” However, the new Vice Chancellor at the University has initiated an affirmation of commitment to academic freedom and responsibility that has been passed by Academic Board and endorsed by Council. At the University of Canberra, staff can “comment on and engage in public debate subject to common law and to the University’s Code of Professional Ethics.” Further, academics are entitled to “exercise intellectual freedom in a manner consistent with service to scholarship and the education of the Australian people, and the related pursuit of community activities that benefit society at large.”

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______________________________________________________________ 6.

Implicit Broader Goals of Academic Work What can the analysis of intellectual freedom tell us about the broader goals of academic work? A cynical view might be that academic freedom is merely used as a tool to further a university’s strategic ambitions. Perhaps less instrumentally, it might be viewed as encouraging a desirable organisational culture or working environment. Allusions such as these can be seen at more than one institution. For instance, the principal goal of the Australian National University is to become internationally recognised: Through the relentless pursuit of excellence, The Australian National University will be one of the world’s top universities and to achieve this goal the University will work cooperatively with its staff. The University recognises that its greatest assets are its staff and students, and that its capacity to support, develop and provide critique of Australian society will be greatest when intellectual freedom is exercised in a manner consistent with a responsible search for knowledge and its dissemination. The University of Adelaide states that its primary goal is “being a research intensive institution and a leading Higher Education Institution in Australia.” Central to achieving this goal is to ensure that staff work “in an environment in which academic freedom is supported.” The University of Canberra describes intellectual freedom as a managerial initiative which, along with organisational reform, will facilitate the achievements of the university’s strategic objectives: “fostering the continuing improvement of working relationships between all staff by upholding intellectual freedom and preventing and eliminating all forms of harassment in the workplace.’ The principles of academic freedom are in danger of being conscripted into ‘executive-speak’ and assembled alongside other weasel words such as “the cant of competitive advantage and human resources management, transparency, accountability” that signal the “triumph of economics.”40 If we adopt the language of business, are we are at risk of becoming “anaesthetised into dull-witted obedience … (where) To speak the words the powerful speak is to obey them, or at least to give up all outward signs of freedom”?41 If so, surely this is one of the great ironies in the policy language of intellectual freedom. 7.

Conclusion In this paper, I have used critical policy analysis to interrogate the meanings of academic freedom incorporated in current enterprise agreements and codes of conduct at Australian universities. Multiple, overlapping and contradictory versions of the term exist. Clauses are loaded with contingencies. The imperatives of academic work and the reward systems

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_____________________________________________________________ within universities seem to counter the exercise of academic freedom. The legal statuses of our academic freedom are uncertain. We are working on contested ground. Australia has a fragile form of intellectual freedom. The variation between universities in the content of their policies exposes it to constant undercutting. Academic freedoms have to be renegotiated or defended every three years or so during enterprise bargaining rounds. Institutionally-based agreements about intellectual freedom are patently unworkable. Increased collaboration between universities, on research projects for example, means that one member of a research team can be permitted to engage in critical public debate while another from a different university is restricted. While enterprise bargaining may have opened the door for the insertion of academic freedom clauses, it entraps academics by inducing complicity in the regulation of their work. Thus, the enterprise bargaining process itself is an instrument used in the federal government’s neoliberal agenda.42 How important is it, then, to fight for academic freedoms to be enshrined in Australia’s Higher Education Act, or in a constitutional bill of rights? Or for members of the academy to codify their values, such as the Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure articulated by the American Association of University Professors?43 It is imperative. Academic freedom must not be subject to industrial bidding at the expiration of enterprise agreements. Academic freedom is as fundamental to civic democracy as the right to vote. On the other hand, legislative protections might do little to change our practices. According to one seasoned Australian campaigner for academic rights, while academics who speak out may be belittled or threatened by those outside the academy, the real silencing occurs within.44 Senior executives, concerned to protect the commercial interests and market reputation of their universities, terminate academics’ contracts or apply disciplinary procedures. However, self-censorship, self-absorption and selfinterest among academics themselves are the most potent limiters: Most tenured academics never have and never will speak out in public critically on any sensitive issue or about any powerful group. They are much too concerned about the opinion of their peers, their promotions and their research grants.44 The solution, then, is to encourage dissent: for academics to speak out. From this viewpoint, protections afforded through legislation and policy are much less effective than the need to cultivate a climate of open inquiry and debate. This position is close to that recently advocated in the United States of America where academic freedom is under direct assault from a new front:

12

Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________ right-wing authoritarians who are “committed to nurturing antiintellectualism and intolerance.”46 There is a sophisticated and concerted campaign by right-wing extremists and corporate interests to neutralise the professoriate, eliminate tenure, and silence critical pedagogy. The solution lies in the classroom through the re-assertion of critical pedagogy: a political and moral practice that provides the knowledge, skills, and social relations that enable students to expand the possibilities of what it means to be critical citizens while using their knowledge and skills to deepen and extend the possibilities of living in a substantive and inclusive democracy.47 As a first step, scholars must take the lead in articulating an Australian national statement on the rights, responsibilities and purposes of academic freedom. This statement must then be used in political struggle to secure appropriate amendments to Australia’s Higher Education Act.

Notes 1. There is no distinction made in the literature between the concepts of academic freedom and intellectual freedom. Therefore, the terms are used interchangeably throughout this paper. 2. J Jackson, ‘Express rights to academic freedom in Australian public university employment’, Southern Cross University Law Review, 9, 2005, pp. 197-198. 3. C McSherry, Who Owns Academic Work? Battling for Control of Intellectual Property, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001, p. 220. 4. ibid., p. 221. 5. Jackson, op. cit., p.118. 6. B Martin, C Ann Baker, C Manwell and C Pugh (eds.), Intellectual Suppression: Australian Case Histories, Analysis and Responses, Angus and Robertson, London, 1986. 7. S Marginson and M Considine, The Enterprise University. Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. 8. P Coaldrake and L Stedman, Academic Work in the Twenty-first Century. Changing Roles and Policies. Occasional Paper Series. Higher Education Division, Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1999. 9. McSherry, op. cit. 10. C Kayrooz, P Kinnear and P Preston, Academic Freedom and Commercialisation of Australian Universities: Perceptions and Experiences

John McDonald

13

_____________________________________________________________ of Social Scientists, Discussion Paper No. 37, The Australia Institute, Canberra, 2001. 11. S Slaughter and L Leslie, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997. 12. Australian Vice Chancellors Committee, AVCC Submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Review of Sedition Laws, April 2006. Accessed 15 December 2006. www.avcc.edu.au 13. E Eddy, ‘Australian Higher Education Modernisation: Enterprise Bargaining and the Changing Basis of Academic Autonomy’, Paper presented to the Australasian Political Science Studies Association Conference, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 29 September – 1 October 2003. 14. F Furedi, Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? Confronting 21st. Century Philistinism, Continuum, London, 2004. 15. D Horowitz, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C., 2006. 16. Martin, op. cit. 17. Kayrooz, op. cit. 18. G Polya, ‘Current Academic Censorship and Self-Censorship in Australian Universities’, Public University Journal, Volume 1, Conference Supplement, Paper presented at the Australian Public University National Convention, Melbourne, 9-10 December, 2001. 19. E McDonald and G Williams, ‘Threats to Academic Freedom’, Australian Policy Online. Accessed 27 September 2007. http://www.apo.org.au/linkboard/results.chtml?filename_num=101996. 20. Jackson, op. cit. 21. J Jackson, ‘Implied contractual rights to academic freedom in Australian universities’, Southern Cross University Law Review, 10, 2006, pp. 139-200. 22. N Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language, Longman, London, 1995. 23. B Engels, ‘Old problem, new label: Reconstructing the problem of welfare dependency in Australian social policy discourse’, Just Policy, 41, 2006, pp. 5-14. 24. J Bessant, ‘The politics of official talk about welfare reform in Australia’, Just Policy, 28, 2002, 12-22. 25. National Tertiary Education Union, Higher Education, Policy and Research Matters, Motions on Notice. NTEU National Council Meeting 2001, Theme Resolution – Intellectual Freedom and University Governance. www.nteu.org.au. Accessed 6 December 2006. 26. Jackson, 2005 and 2006 op. cit. explains the legal distinctions between codes of ethics, enterprise agreements and contracts of employment. These distinctions are important, but their consideration is beyond the scope of this paper and the expertise of the author.

14

Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________ 27. P Sheehan, Some Special Challenges Facing a Contemporary Catholic University, Australian Catholic University website. Accessed 3 January 2007. http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/7865/Vc_challenges.pdf. 28. H Giroux, ‘Academic freedom under fire: The case for critical pedagogy’, College Literature, 33(4), 2006, 1-42. 29. J McDonald, ‘The academic as a “cost centre”: dishonouring the promise of the social sciences’, in G and T Giberson (eds.) Knowledge Economy: The Commodification of Knowledge and Information in the Academic System, (forthcoming). 30. Australian Vice Chancellors Committee, op. cit. 31. McSherry, op. cit. 32. Table One extends and updates Jackson, op. cit., 2005, p. 128. 33. Parliament of New Zealand, New Zealand Education Act 1989, Section 162(4)(a). 34. National Tertiary Education Union website, ‘Save George’, Accessed 15 January, 2007. http://www.nteu.org.au/campaigns/savegeorge. 35. J Cain and J Hewitt, Off Course: From Public Place to Marketplace at Melbourne University, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2004. 36. P Rodan, ‘A Modest Victory for Academic Values. The Demise of David Robinson’, Australian Universities Review, 46(2), 2004, p. 21. 37. Marginson and Considine, op. cit., p. 62. 38. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Corporate Unis Restricting Academic Freedom, Claim Researchers’, News in Science, 04/12/1998, Accessed 15 January, 2007. http://www.abc.net.au/cgibin/common/printfriendly.pl?/science/news/stories/s17729. 39. J Loxton, ‘Current media debate’, Press Release, 26 July 2005, Macquarie University, Accessed 15 January 2007. http://www.pr.mq.edu.au/events/archive.asp?ItemID=2046. 40. D Watson, Watson’s Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant and Management Jargon, Random House Australia, Sydney, 2004, p. 3. 41. Watson, ibid., p. 2. 42. Eddy, op. cit., p. 2. 43. American Association of University Professors, 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, Accessed 15 January 2007. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/1940statement.htm?PF=1. 44. B Martin, ‘Whistleblowers – and Why Academic Freedom is Most Threatened From Within’, Campus Review, 11-17 November 1993, p. 9. 45. ibid., p. 9. 46. Giroux, op. cit., p. 18. 47. ibid., p. 31.

John McDonald

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_____________________________________________________________

Bibliography American Association of University Professors, 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Accessed 15 January 2007. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/1940statement.htm?P F=1. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Corporate Unis Restricting Academic Freedom, Claim Researchers’. News in Science, 04/12/1998, Accessed 15 January, 2007. http://www.abc.net.au/cgibin/common/printfriendly.pl?/science/news/stories/s17729. Australian Vice Chancellors Committee, AVCC Submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Review of Sedition Laws. April 2006. Accessed 15 December 2006. <www.avcc.edu.au> Bessant, J., ‘The politics of official talk about welfare reform in Australia’, Just Policy, 28, 2002, 12-22. Cain, J. and Hewitt, J., Off Course: From Public Place to Marketplace at Melbourne University. Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2004. Coaldrake, P. and Stedman, L., Academic Work in the Twenty-first Century. Changing Roles and Policies. Occasional Paper Series. Higher Education Division, Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1999. Eddy, E., ‘Australian Higher Education Modernisation: Enterprise Bargaining and the Changing Basis of Academic Autonomy’. Paper presented to the Australasian Political Science Studies Association Conference, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 29 September – 1 October 2003. Engels, B., ‘Old problem, new label: Reconstructing the problem of welfare dependency in Australian social policy discourse’. Just Policy, 41, 2006, pp. 5-14. Fairclough, N., Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Longman, London, 1995. Furedi, F., Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? Confronting 21st. Century Philistinism. Continuum, London, 2004. Giroux, H., ‘Academic freedom under fire: The case for critical pedagogy’, College Literature. 33(4), 2006, 1-42. Horowitz, D., The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C., 2006. Jackson, J., ‘Express rights to academic freedom in Australian public university employment’. Southern Cross University Law Review, 9, 2005, pp. 197-198.

16

Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________ Jackson, J., ‘Implied contractual rights to academic freedom in Australian universities’. Southern Cross University Law Review, 10, 2006, pp. 139-200. Kayrooz, C., Kinnear, P. and Preston, P., Academic Freedom and Commercialisation of Australian Universities: Perceptions and Experiences of Social Scientists. Discussion Paper No. 37, The Australia Institute, Canberra, 2001. Loxton, J., ‘Current media debate’. Press Release, 26 July 2005, Macquarie University, Accessed 15 January 2007. http://www.pr.mq.edu.au/events/archive.asp?ItemID=2046. Marginson, S. and Considine, M., The Enterprise University. Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. Martin, B., ‘Whistleblowers – and Why Academic Freedom is Most Threatened From Within’. Campus Review, 11-17 November 1993, p. 9. Martin, B., Baker, C Ann, Manwell, C. and Pugh, C., (eds.), Intellectual Suppression: Australian Case Histories, Analysis and Responses. Angus and Robertson, London, 1986. McDonald, E. and Williams, G. ‘Threats to Academic Freedom’. Australian Policy Online. Accessed 27 September 2006. http://www.apo.org.au/linkboard/results.chtml?filename_num=101996 . McDonald, J., ‘The academic as a “cost centre”: dishonouring the promise of the social sciences’. In Giberson, G. and T., (eds.) Knowledge Economy: The Commodification of Knowledge and Information in the Academic System. (forthcoming). McSherry, C., Who Owns Academic Work? Battling for Control of Intellectual Property. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2001, p. 220. National Tertiary Education Union, ‘Higher Education, Policy and Research Matters, Motions on Notice.’ NTEU National Council Meeting 2001, Theme Resolution – Intellectual Freedom and University Governance. www.nteu.org.au/. Accessed 6 December 2006. Parliament of New Zealand, New Zealand Education Act 1989, Section 162(4)(a). Polya, G., ‘Current Academic Censorship and Self-Censorship in Australian Universities’. Public University Journal, Volume 1, Conference Supplement, Paper presented at the Australian Public University National Convention, Melbourne, 9-10 December, 2001. Rodan, P., ‘A Modest Victory for Academic Values. The Demise of David Robinson’. Australian Universities Review, 46(2), 2004, pp. 21.

John McDonald

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_____________________________________________________________ Sheehan, P., Some Special Challenges Facing a Contemporary Catholic University. Australian Catholic University website. Accessed 3 January 2007. http://www.acu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/7865/Vc_challenges.pdf. Slaughter S. and Leslie, L., Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997. Watson, D., Watson’s Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Clichés, Cant and Management Jargon. Random House Australia, Sydney, 2004.

18

Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________

Adelaide ACU ANU CDU CQU CSU Curtin Deakin ECU Flinders Griffith JCU LaTrobe Macquarie Monash Murdoch

‡

Responsible and honest search for knowledge and truth

Express unpopular or controversial views

Advocacy role

Debates and opinion limited to discipline and expertise Debates and opinion on tertiary education

Public debate and express opinion

Critical and open inquiry

Academic freedom an essential and defining feature Academic freedom to be protected and promoted Academic freedom acknowledged

University

Broad support for academic freedom

Table One (part i). Content analysis of academic freedom in enterprise agreements and codes of conduct at Australian universities as at December 2006.32

‡

Nil

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

John McDonald

19

_____________________________________________________________

Newcastle QUT RMIT SCU Swinburne Ballarat Canberra UNE Melbourne UNSW Queensland UniSA USC USQld UWS Sydney Tasmania UTS UWA Victoria W’longong

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

Nil

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

and truth

Responsible and honest search for knowledge

Express unpopular or controversial views

Advocacy role

Debates and opinion on tertiary education

Debates and opinion limited to discipline and expertise

Public debate and express opinion

Critical and open inquiry

Academic freedom acknowledged

Academic freedom to be protected and promoted

Academic freedom an essential and defining feature

University

Broad support for academic freedom

Table One (part ii). Content analysis of academic freedom in enterprise agreements and codes of conduct at Australian universities as at December 2006.

University

Adelaide ACU ANU CDU CQU CSU Curtin Deakin ECU Flinders Griffith JCU LaTrobe Macquarie Monash Murdoch ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

Linked to values and strategic goals of university

Grievance resolution to pursue limitation of academic freedom

Freedom from institutional censorship

Perform role without fear of harassment or intimidation

Cannot be used to harm or vilify

Academic freedom in teaching

‡ ‡ ‡

Academic freedom in research

‡ ‡ ‡

Reference to collegiality

State opinion about university

Participate in professional bodies including unions

Representation and decision-making

20 Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies

______________________________________________________________

Table One (part iii). Content analysis of academic freedom in enterprise agreements and codes of conduct at Australian universities as at December 2006.

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡

University

Newcastle QUT RMIT SCU Swinburne Ballarat Canberra UNE Melbourne UNSW Queensland UniSA USC USQld UWS Sydney Tasmania UTS UWA Victoria W’longong ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡

‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

‡

‡

‡ ‡

Linked to values and strategic goals of university

Grievance resolution to pursue limitation of academic freedom

Freedom from institutional censorship

Perform role without fear of harassment or intimidation

Cannot be used to harm or vilify

Academic freedom in teaching

Academic freedom in research

Reference to collegiality

Participate in professional bodies including unions State opinion about university

Representation and decision-making

John McDonald 21

_____________________________________________________________

Table One (part iv). Content analysis of academic freedom in enterprise agreements and codes of conduct at Australian universities as at December 2006.

‡ ‡

‡

‡ ‡ ‡

‡

Counting the Currency of Knowledge: New Zealand’s Performance-Based Research Fund Grant Duncan Lyotard’s concept of ‘performativity’ has proved itself to be especially applicable (if not prophetic) in understanding the major shifts in the institutional discourses of universities in recent times. The New Zealand government’s Tertiary Education Strategy (TES) and Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) are exemplary. This chapter outlines some of the main elements of these new political devices, especially their use of a ‘commodity’ theory of knowledge. Attention is focused particularly on the PBRF. It is shown that the PBRF: Is being used to make claims about research productivity that do not meet the normative standards of research methodology; in effect, breaches the spirit of the Education Act’s requirement to give effect to academic freedom; is being misused by university managers for disciplinary purposes; and promotes the perverse perception that the purpose of research is to make money (commodifying research and researchers), rather than institutional income being deployed to produce research for its own value. Key words: Knowledge economy, research, universities, New Zealand

1.

Introduction The theme of this chapter revolves around two connotations of currency: the prevalence in a society of advanced knowledge (ideas that are “current”), as well as the monetary medium of exchange. This chapter will illustrate how up-to-date knowledge as a commodity may begin to act in a manner that resembles money, once it is translated into auditable units that attempt to account for the national and international recognition of those who produce it. As the commodity theory of knowledge that informs the politics of the so-called ‘knowledge economy’ gathers greater ‘currency’ in political discourse, the imperatives of political strategy and economic competition lead to a desire to implement methods of ‘accountability’ that purport to ‘count’, to ‘evaluate’ and even to ‘reward’ the production of new knowledge. Several countries have now experimented with such audit systems within higher educational institutions in order to assess and to enhance the value of their knowledge-currency. The present chapter takes as its raw material the Performance-Based Research Fund, a funding evaluation scheme that has surveyed university staff in New Zealand in 2003 and 2006. It considers the

24

Counting the Currency

___________________________________________________ shifts in institutional values that correlate with this system, and then proceeds to examine the PBRF itself and the contradictions that it has produced. Close analysis of such a system is required in order to appreciate the effects it has on the values of research and scholarship and on academic subjectivity. As the sheer mechanical power to collect and transfer information increases so dramatically, thanks to contemporary information and communication technologies, the problematics of knowledge become more pronounced. The production of new technologies, both hardware and software, is in itself a hugely lucrative business - but the ability to apply these technologies and to have them as widely used as possible by whole populations becomes a policy imperative. People must know about technology as a means to knowing what is current, and to discovering things as yet unknown. Hence, knowledge must be applied to knowledge itself and to its forces of production. The processes of governing in the global economy are thus concerned more and more with knowledge as a commodity, and public policy promotes a utilitarian commodity-based epistemology. Traditional liberaldemocratic ideas about the right to learn, the character-forming nature of education, or the emancipatory effect of knowledge (‘knowledge liberates’) give way to a concern with the instrumental effects of knowledge as a contributor to economic growth and innovation and to the management of social and environmental risks (‘knowledge adds value’). The features of knowledge-as-commodity may be divided into two parts: product innovation and human capital. The former refers to knowledge that may be applied to the development of new products or enhancing the features of existing products, the provision of information to the consumer that improves the consumer’s experience, or innovations that improve the efficiency of the production process. The latter refers to economically and socially useful skills ‘invested’ in the person through education, training or experience. In any case, knowledge is thus seen to add value to the processes of economic production and governmental risk management, and hence to advance the purposes of capital accumulation and fiscal responsibility. Along with this redirection of strategic thinking around the concept of a knowledge economy, the discourse of the university has been changing. What was once conceived (albeit idealistically) as an institution without walls, dedicated to the pursuit of ‘truth’ by a community of scholars, evolves into an enclosed organisation dedicated to the competitive pursuit of ‘excellence’ - which may mean simply the maximisation of institutional income, power and reputation. Financial and public-relations concerns will be observed to dominate the actions of university managers when we examine the effects of the PBRF in New Zealand. The power to manage information also leads to problems of secrecy or intellectual property (if knowledge must be enclosed from the public

Grant Duncan

25

___________________________________________________ domain) and of privacy regarding the distribution of information that may identify individuals. If information is “currency” and has a market-price, then popular trust in the networks that circulate it depend upon effective selfregulation within the system in order to protect the rights of the person. In New Zealand’s case, there is a Privacy Act 1993 that governs the use and exchange of information about private individuals by agencies. The legislation is based on a number of principles, especially the principles that the agency must disclose the purposes for which it is gathering personal information, and that it should restrict its use of such information to those purposes alone. The individual, moreover, normally has the right to retrieve private information about him- or herself that is stored by an agency. With the increased power of organisations to store, transmit and exchange data and personal information about individuals, the concerns about abuses of privacy have become more prominent, and such laws have been required to protect the rights and the privacy of the individual. The present chapter will also illustrate how the attempt to turn academic knowledge into a fungible currency, mediated by electronic data systems, leads to abuses of privacy and to an increase in the surveillance and disciplining of the academic community. The education of the person is seen as vital for the knowledge economy, and hence the investment in the subject as locus of skills and portfolio of human capital must be counted, regulated and increased for the benefit of economic adaptation and growth and for the more effective performance of professions that manage social and economic problems. Further, the institutions that ‘produce’ educated persons are increasingly monitored and audited in order to assess the accumulation of human capital. Skills do become redundant, however, and the ‘currency’ of knowledge can never be relied upon to remain stable, so the obligation of the subject is to strive to avoid ignorance or obsolescence, and the obligation of the university is to be at the forefront of knowledge production. But knowledge, as a commodity, is now abstracted from the ‘knowing person’, as it would be preferable to manage information by machine if it were feasible and more efficient to do so. The ‘knowing subject’, construed as a person with virtue and character acquired through learning, is of less interest than the economic value of knowledge. Knowledge as commodity is thus conceived as a disembodied knowledge. But, in so far as knowledge-currency still requires a subject who ‘professes’ advanced knowledge, and especially if the professor’s esteem and reputation in his or her discipline can be assessed and audited as ‘performance’, the professor him- or herself is more likely to be perceived as a commodity in an academic labour market. Hence, performance-auditing systems like the PBRF succeed in commodifying research and the researcher.

26

Counting the Currency

___________________________________________________ 2.

Background The idea of a ‘knowledge economy’ is now well embedded in the political rationality of the neo-liberal era1 - in which I include the ‘third way’ variant. Knowledge is now considered to be a critical element in business innovation and international competitive advantage; and it has become a matter of policy orthodoxy for governments and international agencies to espouse the social and economic benefits of education and research. For those in higher education, this political development is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it allows us to promote the benefits of education and research in ‘hard’ economic, as well and social and cultural, terms. This gives greater political weight to arguments for enhancing student participation rates, investing in research, and maximising the commitment of public finances to tertiary education institutions. On the other hand, such a utilitarian economic discourse on the value of knowledge and higher education will undermine the traditional ideal of an impartial pursuit of ‘truth’, and hence pose a threat to academic freedom. Nevertheless, the contemporary claims of international business that success lies in ‘the application of knowledge to knowledge’ - and hence in the more effective ‘management’ of knowledge in the innovation and production processes - must surely be subject to critical analysis within the discourses of the university. Applying knowledge to knowledge itself is, in philosophical terms, the concern of epistemology, which is as old as philosophy, and hence older even than the oldest universities. The university, as a community of scholars, has something to say about a ‘knowledge economy’, one would expect.2 To complicate matters, though, the universities themselves become implicated in and transformed by the political rationality of neo-liberalism and the idea of a knowledge economy. Indeed, university managers may argue for their role in the knowledge economy; and government and industry come to view universities as key institutional instruments for the purposes of economic transformation. Political, economic and commercial strategy takes over as the very raison d’être of the university; and the languid atmosphere of impartial scholarship and scientific curiosity is infected by the competitive quest for money and power. The consequent shift in the discourse of the university was effectively captured by Lyotard in his monograph published originally in French in 1979. He correctly perceived a shift from a discourse based on denotative statements (that assert that something is the case) to a discourse based on performative statements (that make something happen). The production of proof, which is in principle only part of an argumentation process designed to win agreement from the addressees of scientific messages, thus falls under the control of another language game, in which the goal is no

Grant Duncan

27

___________________________________________________ longer truth, but performativity - that is, the best possible input/output equation. The State and/or company must abandon the idealist and humanist narratives of legitimation in order to justify the new goal: in the discourse of today’s financial backers of research, the only credible goal is power. Scientists, technicians, and instruments are purchased not to find truth, but to augment power.3 The traditional disciplinary regimes of professional power - based in relatively autonomous, self-regulating peer-groups with knowledge-bases legitimated by university programmes - give way to a regime of performance management which seeks to codify and, if possible, computerise professional knowledge. The neo-liberal distrust of provider capture and rent-seeking behaviours deploys economic incentives and managerial techniques to control performance and knowledge in order to overcome the self-regulating autonomy of the professions. The ‘disciplined’ society evolves into the ‘performance-audited’ society. This trend affects the academy as well. The academic profession the professor as preserver, discoverer and disseminator of knowledge - must also ‘perform’, and be seen to ‘perform’. As a producer of human capital - in the form of graduates - and of new knowledge, the professor is a commodity in an institution that is considered to ‘add economic value’ for society and that acts to maximise its own economic resources. The present paper, then, seeks to link, by way of example, these broader generalisations to the local mechanisms of performance management and financial allocation in New Zealand’s universities, particularly for the funding of research. 3.

The Political Will to Know The application of knowledge economy discourse to tertiaryeducation policy in New Zealand is expressed most clearly in the Labour-led government’s two Tertiary Education Strategy (TES) documents published in 2002 and 2006.4 Elsewhere, I have analysed the rhetoric of the 2002 TES, its use of a commodity theory of knowledge and its imperative for universities to align themselves with governmental ‘national goals’, principally concerning the role of knowledge in economic and social development.5 Under the aegis of this policy strategy, the government wished to enhance the quality of research produced in higher-education institutions, particularly the country’s eight universities, and a Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) was developed to achieve this.6 So, before describing the PBRF in detail, what kind of problems was it intended to address? It is well documented by independent research that the

28

Counting the Currency

___________________________________________________ level of public funding of universities had declined dramatically during the 1990s, while student fees increased,7 and that New Zealand’s universities are presently funded at a level that is much lower (on a purchasing-power parity basis) than other comparable (or competing) nations.8 The funding model that had previously been adopted in the 1990s was determined by ‘student choice’. Tuition subsidies and student fees were the main sources of income for the universities, and so funding was largely dependent on attracting student numbers. This favoured courses of low marginal costs and high through-put, and it did not encourage the highest quality teaching. In nonuniversity institutions, a number of offerings of dubious quality were created purely in order to attract income. Under this former ‘quasi-market’ model, research was supported financially either by an unacknowledged contribution from tuition-based funding, or by competitive tendering for external research funds. Much research and scholarship, therefore, that did not fit the criteria of public-good or industry-led research funds was not explicitly supported and was continued by academics dedicated to their own disciplines, as permitted by their teaching workloads. A significant anomaly within this approach arose from the fact that research-active academic programmes (in universities) were being funded at the same rate as those not engaged in research (mostly at polytechnics), and so the funding model did not fully recognise the efforts of universities to produce original scholarship and research. In addition, there was statistical evidence that New Zealand’s aggregate investment in research and development, although gradually increasing, was low, as a proportion of GDP, in comparison with the OECD average.9 PBRF documentation does not explicitly say that these were the kinds of problems that it was designed to help solve, but this background is certainly relevant. The stated objective of the PBRF is “to ensure that excellent research in the tertiary education sector is encouraged and rewarded.”10 While New Zealand’s aggregate investment in research and development may be comparatively low, there was, to this author’s knowledge, no investigation that showed that universities were underperforming in terms of research productivity or quality, and no target was set to indicate at what level that performance should be. Nor was there any evidence that university staff were mis-allocating their efforts between their various functions, including research, teaching, teaching-related scholarship (such as text-book or study-guide writing), thesis supervision, application of existing research, or community service. It appears to be simply assumed that knowledge in the form of research is an economic good, that one cannot produce too much of it, and that the more the universities’ knowledge-base could be rated as ‘world class’ the better. However, New Zealand as a small nation of only four million people is always going to be a net importer of new

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___________________________________________________ knowledge and technology, and so comparisons with the rates of investment in research in, say, the USA or UK - the countries most likely to define comparatively what ‘world class’ means - may be misleading. It has been suggested, for instance, that it may have been better to reward institutions for the diffusion of new knowledge, more than for original production.11 So, the stated objective of the PBRF was to encourage the production of new knowledge by enhancing the quality of research, based upon national and international standards as judged by academic peers. The assumption seemed to be that more high-quality research was a good thing, but no goals were set to indicate an optimum output. There was, however, a commitment by government to redistribution of funding, as well as some further new funding, indicating an increase in public investment that would favour universities. 4.

How it Works The PBRF is a research-funding model that is based on an assessment of the quality and productivity of research at all participating tertiary education institutions (not only universities). It has redistributed some of the existing funds for tertiary education, and added some new public money, with the intention of rewarding and encouraging research. Researchactive institutions, especially universities, thus have an incentive to gain the best possible rating in the assessment in order to secure for themselves the maximum possible share of the fund. The assessment of institutions has so far been undertaken twice, in 2003 and 2006, with the next assessment planned for 2012. It is based on three factors. Twenty-five per cent is allocated on the basis of the institution’s research degree completions (masters and doctoral degrees), 15 per cent is based on existing external research-contract income, and the major portion, 60 per cent, is intended to reward and encourage the ‘quality of researchers’. This latter element of the fund has had the greatest impact on the academic community in New Zealand. Every eligible member of academic staff is assessed individually, with ‘eligibility’ determined by the undertaking of teaching at degree level and/or the undertaking of research. Each eligible member of faculty is required to complete an on-line evidence portfolio, consisting of a list of the previous six years’ ‘research outputs’ (which may include creative products, such as exhibitions), a selection of the best four outputs (for example, articles in prestigious journals), evidence of ‘contribution to the research environment’ (such as training of new researchers), and evidence of ‘peer esteem’ (conference invitations, membership of editorial boards, etc.) These individual portfolios are then assessed initially by an internal panel, and later by independent panels representing broad disciplinary

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___________________________________________________ categories. On the basis of the evidence portfolio, the individual researcher is placed in a ‘quality category’: ‘A’ for internationally recognised, ‘B’ for nationally recognised, ‘C’ for research active but not qualifying as A or B, or R for ‘research inactive’. In the 2006 assessment, an ‘NE’ could be added to the ‘C’ and ‘R’ categories to indicate ‘new and emerging researcher’. Institutional PBRF funding is then allocated on the basis of a formula that takes account of the numbers of A, B or C-rated faculty, as well as other weightings for affirmative action reasons and to adjust for the greater costs associated with some disciplines. Public documentation of the PBRF 2003 results was aggregated to the levels of institutions, academic units and nation-wide disciplines. In some cases, especially at the level of academic unit results, it was possible for individual scores to be inferred by anyone who knew that unit well enough. The two highest-scoring disciplines in the country were philosophy and anthropology, while many disciplines that one might associate most closely with the ‘knowledge economy’ (especially in business and technology faculties) scored relatively poorly.12 Sixty per cent of the PBRF is thus based on the aggregation of assessed ‘performance’ of individuals. The effects of this process on researchers therefore depend on the subsequent ownership and distribution of information about individuals deriving from the quality assessments, especially the individual quality scores. Despite protests from the academic community, the individual quality scores were issued not only to the individuals themselves, being ‘personal information’ covered by New Zealand’s Privacy Act 1993, but also to the institutions in which they are employed. This was on the understanding that individuals’ scores would not be used for purposes other than the PBRF. Quality scores should not, it was said, be used for internal personnel purposes (such as promotion or recruitment) unless individuals choose to disclose them. Universities issued ‘privacy statements’ regarding the PBRF, saying (to use Massey University’s policy as an example) that the evidence portfolio was being used “to assess the research performance of the University”, that it “will not be used for any other purpose and will not be released to any other party”, and that the individual quality score “will not be a requirement for academic promotions.” Nonetheless, it was clear that managers within the University would receive individual ratings. Such an arrangement was open to abuse, and abuses have indeed occurred, placing universities at risk of breaches of the Privacy Act. 5.

Politics of Unintended Consequences The PBRF has had the beneficial effect of shifting public funding into research-active institutions to acknowledge their contributions to scientific and scholarly inquiry. Many individual academics have found it beneficial also because it has meant that their department and faculty heads

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___________________________________________________ now take a more active interest in developing their research careers. Nonetheless, the present chapter proceeds to outline some specific detrimental effects of this assessment and funding method. First, the PBRF is used to make claims about research productivity that do not meet the normative standards of research methodology. Even before the results of the 2006 assessment had been released, the Ministry of Education confidently stated that the PBRF has “helped focus the effort of tertiary research on achieving excellence.”13 This is in spite of the fact that, on further inquiry by the author, the Ministry was unable to produce any evidence of this at that time, nor to operationally define “excellence.” Naturally, it is tempting to make comparisons between the results of the 2003 and 2006 assessments to look for improvements in the qualityratings of institutions and disciplines. But, because of the confounding effects of ‘window-dressing’, improved form-filling skills devoted to evidence portfolios, and more careful selection of ‘eligible’ academic staff into the census, it is not valid to make before-and-after claims about ‘research quality’ - that is, not if such claims are to withstand normative scientific scrutiny. Nevertheless, it is apparent from the above quote that the Ministry of Education was already anticipating improvements, even before the 2006 results were released. Upon the actual release of the results, however, the Tertiary Education Commission and the Minister for Tertiary Education were quick to make confident claims in their media statements. The former stated, to accompany the release of the results, that the Quality Evaluation “shows early signs of having a positive impact on tertiary education-base research.”14 On the same day, the Minister for Tertiary Education glowingly claimed: “The results . . . demonstrate that New Zealand is continuing to improve the quality of research.”15 These claims (which have the tone of Maoist propaganda about a ‘bumper harvest’) were based on comparisons between the 2003 and 2006 surveys which found, for example, that the number of staff who received ‘A’ and ‘B’ ratings had increased, and that all universities’ aggregate quality scores had risen. A closer reading of the summary of the actual results, however, showed that the Tertiary Education Commission was aware of the confounding effects that prevent us from making any credible claims about ‘improved research quality’ - even though they were confident that there had been a quantitative increase. The measured improvement in research quality cannot be solely attributed to improvements in actual research quality as there are [sic] likely to be a number of factors influencing the results of the 2006 Quality Evaluation. Nevertheless, the increase in average quality scores, and

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___________________________________________________ the marked increase in the number of staff whose EPs were assigned a funded Quality Category between 2003 and 2006 suggests that there has been some increase in the actual level of research quality.16 They noted that recruitment activities by institutions had contributed to the measured ‘improvements’: . . . the major increase in “A”s in some subject areas could be traced to senior appointments from overseas - of the 218 staff whose EPs [evidence portfolios] were assigned an “A” in the 2006 Quality Evaluation, it was estimated that at least 48 were appointments from overseas.17 The TEC also noted that the assessment panels had generally commented upon an improvement in the presentation of evidence portfolios - although it claimed that this meant that the 2006 round more accurately reflected actual research efforts and quality. Nonetheless, much of the improvement in scores can clearly be attributed to improved skills among academics and their administrative assistants in filling out the on-line forms with suitably impressive details. Furthermore, the universities themselves openly acknowledged that they had made more careful efforts in 2006 to exclude from eligibility for the survey those staff who were not research-active and who could be classed as ‘teaching-only (under strict supervision)’. Thus, the more research-inactive teachers whom one could thus exclude, the greater the aggregate quality score for the university. Universities had renegotiated the employment contracts of some staff in order to use the PBRF eligibility criteria to their advantage, resulting in accusations of manipulation of the system. A TEC audit found that about ten per cent of the sample of those who were eligible and provided evidence portfolios in 2003 were still employed in the sector in 2006, but had become ‘ineligible’ for the 2006 assessment as they no longer met the criteria. Hence, if one were to apply the normative standards of scientific inquiry to these results, one would have to say that there were numerous confounding factors that made it impossible to conclude to what extent ‘research quality’ in New Zealand’s universities had actually improved between 2003 and 2006 (if at all). Indeed, the sample being surveyed between the two assessments had changed considerably, and not in a random way, due to the funding incentives created by the assessment itself, making comparisons invalid without careful statistical controls - which were not implemented. In short, the measurement system, and the manipulation thereof, created their own effects, giving the appearance of improvements in

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___________________________________________________ research quality in 2006. Even the TEC was prepared only to say that the results ‘suggested’ some level of improvement in research quality, and they would not speculate about how much improvement did occur. In short, the PBRF’s results produced no conclusive evidence about its effectiveness in encouraging ‘excellent research’. Because the PBRF is both a measurement tool and an intervention that attempts to alter that which it is measuring, its validity as a measurement tool is strictly limited. No evaluation of this kind could ever reach the standards of precision of the natural sciences, if only because the validity of any assessment of research quality is clearly dependent on the a priori definitions of ‘research’ and ‘quality’, and on the specific criteria for measurement that are chosen. Yet in order to gain the confidence of the very researchers who contribute to the assessment, it would be important for politicians, officials and university managers not to use the results in ways that could not be justified by the standards of research reporting in reputable journals. The PBRF does at least successfully distinguish the research productivity of universities from that of polytechnics. The final quality scores of the eight universities ranged from 1.86 to 4.22, while the highest-scoring polytechnic scored 0.96. This confirmed the institutional distinction, based on research, between these two types of tertiary education organisations. On the other hand, given that there is in reality no objective criterion against which to measure ‘research quality’ (this being a construct invented by those carrying out the measurement), it would be of little statistical validity to draw fine distinctions between scores that are very close to one another. Indeed, the TEC’s results are not reported with a confidence interval partly because of the lack of any underlying objective criterion. What the PBRF results do, however, is to create a ‘league table’ of universities that, while of dubious validity, is nevertheless seized upon by reporters for public consumption as news. Such league tables are a common feature of the global university environment today; despite the fact that they are known to be of limited validity, the ranking implicit in them becomes an end in itself, with real effects that begin to reshape ‘in its own image’ the institutions that it purport to represent.18 Because of their effects on reputations, the relative rankings of the universities became an object of intense competitiveness between ViceChancellors. In 2003, the University of Auckland was ranked first; but, in 2006, first place was taken by the University of Otago, leaving Auckland second. But the differences in scores between the top three scoring universities in 2006 was very narrow: 4.22, 4.19, 4.10. Nonetheless, Otago’s Vice-Chancellor was quick to capitalise on his university’s score by claiming it as “New Zealand’s top university.” The University of Auckland had previously been running an advertising campaign, calling itself “New

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___________________________________________________ Zealand’s number one university”, and it did not desist from doing so, using its ranking on the Times Higher Education Supplement’s survey as alternative ‘evidence’. An unseemly war of words ensued between the two institutions. The fact that the PBRF, which is really only a governmental audit designed for funding purposes, is misused for political and public-relations purposes does little to raise its reputation among the very researchers upon whom it depends and whom it is supposed to ‘encourage’. This is especially so if some of the claims made about the assessments’ results are not deemed by the research community to have underlying validity. Yet such systems of performance management already contain within themselves the potential to become instruments of power, employed in ways that go well beyond their original stated objectives. 6.

Compulsory Freedom These considerations lead me to an examination of the PBRF’s effects on academic freedom. Although academics in New Zealand are free to criticise government policies and to question received ideas, the PBRF nonetheless breaches the Education Act’s requirement of government and of university councils to respect academic freedom. Section 161 of the Education Act 1989 defines academic freedom, and this includes “the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions . . . [and] to engage in research.” This is mediated by the requirements to abide by high ethical standards and permit public scrutiny and by “the need for accountability by institutions and the proper use by institutions of resources allocated to them.” The following section of the Act includes the requirement that universities “accept a role as critic and conscience of society.” Section 161 states that the universities, the Minister and all agencies of government “shall act in all respects so as to give effect to the intention of Parliament as expressed in this section.” Now, it would be an unfair exaggeration to claim that the PBRF represents a gross or blatant violation of Section 161, as New Zealand’s academics are still free to criticise policies and to challenge orthodox ideas. Moreover, academic freedom does not exist in an ideal form, but is always shaped by, and contested within, local, historical contexts. Hence, peer-group norms, academic-disciplinary standards, competitive career objectives, etc. do shape intellectual expression and, from time to time, limit scientific progress. Nor is academic freedom a unique or distinctive liberty, as it sits alongside other democratic principles, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press and parliamentary privilege. So, while there may never be an ideal institutional space, protected by the Academy’s walls, that preserves an unconditional freedom of thought, the principle of academic freedom does at least provide a check against deliberate interference or manipulation.

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___________________________________________________ Given, then, that the PBRF is, by political design, an attempt to shape the priorities of university researchers, it breaches the spirit of the Act concerning academic freedom. In the TES, the government explicitly states its intent to shape the teaching and research activities of universities in line with its own policy objectives, as a condition of securing public funding. The PBRF in particular seeks to shape research priorities and productivity - and hence the choices of individual scholars and scientists - in line with those national goals. Although I am not at all sure how this present ‘research output’ may be contributing to the government’s goals, the Minister states that it should contribute to his government’s priorities. Governmental and institutional documents are completely transparent about that. So, while not grossly interfering with my freedom as a scholar, this nevertheless represents a direct policy (indeed, political) intervention into my work. The level of monitoring and reporting of individuals’ research productivity has consequently increased, and it should not be forgotten that surveillance in itself does alter behaviour. Activities that were once considered ‘free’, in the sense of unconstrained by any fear of political disfavour, become required in order to avoid a new form of discrimination. If one is not seen to produce research, one’s position creates a financial risk to the university, and opprobrium will quickly follow. Now, there is an obligation on any person who accepts the privileges of an academic post to exercise academic freedom actively by way of scholarly inquiry and scientific investigation. Many people in academic positions do not actively engage in research - a fact which was always known, and which has now been highlighted and quantified by the PBRF. To eschew research is, in the author’s opinion, an unjustifiable misuse of the privileges of academic freedom. However, this same academic freedom, in turn, is currently undermined by a system of controls designed to ‘encourage and reward’ research – thus, in effect, making the exercise of one’s freedom compulsory and regulated, as it goads the inactive into activity, and rewards ‘active researchers’ for doing what they formerly were motivated to do because of its intrinsic rewards and intellectual value. This paradox expresses itself daily among academics for whom the PBRF has become the reason for doing research, rather than remaining merely a funding mechanism that supports research which is already worth doing, either for its own sake or for its social and economic benefits. Individuals now make choices about their research priorities based on the effect it may have on their quality scores. So, for example, writing text-books, which do not rate highly in the PBRF definition of ‘research’, is now likely to be neglected in favour of articles for international journals. In effect, the autonomy of the academic community to determine for itself the balance between different forms of scholarship has been deliberately re-shaped by political means.

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___________________________________________________ The very purpose and spirit of academic freedom is subtly undermined when the academic community begins to perform research for the sake of a governmental funding mechanism and their university’s share thereof. Academic freedom becomes an academic treadmill. What was once had its source in intellectual curiosity and excitement, or was determined by professorial judgement, has come to be driven by performance anxiety and fiscal incentives. Politicians and managers have claimed that the PBRF does not interfere with academic freedom - partially justifiable by the fact that the PBRF assessment makes no critical judgement about the content of one’s publications. Hence, one may still act as “critic and conscience” and yet get a good quality score. This is a fair point, but a superficial one, as it neglects the more pervasive effects that the PBRF is having on academic customs and on the culture of scholarship. When each paper becomes a coin in the university’s slot machine, the pressure comes on from above to shape the scholar’s production of “the currency of knowledge,” and academic freedom is quietly forgotten. These politically and managerially organised efforts to control (“encourage and reward”) the supposedly “free” pursuit of scholarly inquiry and scientific investigation by means of a system of extrinsic incentives (in the form of extra public funding) directly interfere with the very foundations of academic freedom. This is especially so in New Zealand’s system wherein the individual scholar or scientist is the unit of assessment, and his or her score is known to managers. Hence, the New Zealand Government, its agencies and the universities themselves are failing to perform their duty to give effect to the academic freedom requirements of the Education Act when implementing the PBRF. So, furthermore, the paradox of “compulsory academic freedom” becomes more starkly evident when we observe PBRF-related performance criteria being linked to employment and disciplinary procedures. Although the PBRF and its individual quality scores were officially intended only for the purposes of a governmental funding mechanism, they are now being misused by university managers for performance-management and disciplinary purposes. In short, the PBRF framework supplies a tool for bullying academic staff and for exerting greater managerial control over their jobs. In the case of Massey University, for example, there is the usual ineffectual “privacy” statement - which purports to ensure that information in evidence portfolios will only be used for the PBRF assessment, and for no other purposes - while, in fact, there is also a “research capability” policy, based on PBRF grades, which threatens academics with relegation to teaching-only posts if they fail to meet the PBRF’s criteria of “researchactive,” and advises that employment selection procedures should be based on candidates’ abilities to meet those criteria. Given that managers know the

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___________________________________________________ quality scores of individuals anyway, this threat to individual academic employment conditions turns research away from an expression of academic freedom, and creates a “perform or else” imperative. Privacy of personal information is completely compromised. Hence, one can also observe the commodifying effect of the PBRF. The PBRF inadvertently promotes the perverse perception that the purpose of research is to make money (commodifying research and researchers), rather than institutional income being deployed to produce research for its own value. Each research “output” now acts like a promissory note in a marketplace, creating the confident expectation of augmented institutional income. The active researcher - especially if rated “A” - becomes “hot property” in a competitive employment market; and university research policies are framed in terms of the competitive pursuit of money and the maintenance of financial viability, rather than the pursuit of knowledge and the maintenance of academic freedom. Academic freedom is no longer treated as the premise of the university’s research activities, but instead becomes an obstacle to be navigated in the course of managing “financial risk.” Furthermore, many researchers themselves buy into this commodification by stating that research activities are needed for, or will “look good” within, the PBRF assessment. Many who achieve favourable scores have actively used them to advance their own ambitions. One should not assume that individual academics are merely the “victims” of the new system, as there is a range of individual responses to it, depending, one could argue, on the advantage to be gained from it. To give this commentary an ironic twist, then, the present chapter, and any other papers I may publish that critique the PBRF, can be entered into future PBRF assessments in order to augment my personal quality rating, and hence marginally to enhance the income of my university. The PBRF itself is impervious to the critical content of what I publish. Because the system cares only about the appearance of “quality,” and not about content, it can be claimed to preserve academic freedom to the extent that it does not suppress critical inquiry. But, as this example illustrates, it also co-opts critical inquiry. As a form of resistance to this, the best I can do is to ask editors not to place my university affiliation on my publications, and to reserve the right to withhold from university records any relevant information.19 7.

Costs and Benefits Due to complaints after the 2003 assessment about the costs of complying with the PBRF, the TEC decided that the 2006 assessment was “voluntary” for academics who had previously completed it and been rated in 2003, and for whom no changes were expected. In practice, some universities

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___________________________________________________ decided to make it compulsory for all eligible staff to complete an evidence portfolio, for reasons that were not made very clear. This illustrates two further interesting features of this system: the possibility that the cost of assessment exceeds the value of any improvement in research quality, and the arrogation of the government’s funding audit for internal managerial agendas. On the former point, there is evidence that, once one factors in the costs of producing each PBRF point, the extra funds that the PBRF has so far supplied to the universities may be offset by the cost of performing and complying with the assessment itself. Hazeldine and Kurniawan calculated that the funding reallocation effected by the PBRF over the period 2003 to 2006 “would increase research output by no more than the transaction costs of implementing the new system.”20 This casts further doubt on the political claims about how the PBRF led to improved research quality. In so far as the measured improvements might have represented any real underlying improvement in research quality, one needs to account for the costs of producing such an improvement. Satisfactory results may have been achievable by simply giving the universities extra funding for research, without forcing them through a costly assessment at all. Anecdotally, at an individual level, staff were aware that the time they spent on complying with PBRF requirements could have been time spent in the production of more research. Universities that unnecessarily made the 2006 round “compulsory” were raising their internal compliance costs to a level not even required by the government. This does seem like a senseless waste of time, unless one allows for the hypothesis that the universities’ top management have come to see the PBRF as their own instrument of internal control, and no longer as simply the government’s audit for research funding purposes. When the TEC questioned the Vice-Chancellors about making its “voluntary” assessment compulsory, they were advised by the ViceChancellors that the matter was an internal “employment relations” matter in which the TEC had no right to interfere. It must therefore be asked who “owns” the PBRF: the government or the universities? The enthusiasm of the latter for the PBRF comes about because it represents a bigger slice of the public funding pie, as well as an opportunity to extend the reach and the effectiveness of managerial control. 8.

Conclusion New Zealand’s PBRF system may be viewed as an attempt to “count the currency of knowledge”: to increase the production of “leading-edge” or “world-class” knowledge, and to convert knowledge production into an auditable, money-like form. By making each publication a token convertible into a portion of the sovereign’s budget - and indeed by making the researchactive academic a source of a measurable sum of university income - this system partakes of and advances the commodification of knowledge that is

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___________________________________________________ typical of the politics of the so-called “knowledge economy.” In doing so, academic freedom is forgotten and undermined, and new managerial capabilities for the control of academic staff are discovered and put into effect. The main objective now is that something reporting on research should appear and that it should appear to be “excellent.” The interest in research itself is superficial, if one takes the PBRF too seriously, as the importance and intrinsic value of knowledge is reduced to its mere appearance and its ability to generate cash. But, there is no firm evidence that the PBRF is achieving its avowed goals. To use the PBRF’s results as evidence for its own success, as politicians and officials have done, is invalid, as the incentives it creates and the consequent behaviours confound those results. Furthermore, the costs of compliance may actually cancel out any benefits produced. University staff have been slow to assimilate and react to the effects of this new system, but this author’s impression is that sentiment among the academic community is turning against the PBRF, viewing it as a costly, time-consuming scheme with limited benefit for real research, and yet with many disadvantages, such as the rise in invidious competition and managerial control. The PBRF has succeeded in undermining much of what was left of the traditional “vocation” of scholarly and scientific endeavour, as embodied within the university community.

Notes 1. M Olssen and M A Peters, ‘Neoliberalism, Higher Education and the Knowledge Economy: From Free Market to Knowledge Capitalism’. Journal of Education Policy, vol. 20, May 2005, pp. 313–345. 2. G Duncan, ‘Pouvoir et Savoir: The Tertiary Education Strategy and the Will to Know’. New Zealand Journal of Tertiary Education Policy, vol. 1, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1–9, retrieved 6 March 2007. http://www.aus.ac.nz/publications/Ejournal/Vol1No1/Vol1No1.htm. 3. J-F Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 46. 4. Office of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Tertiary Education Strategy 2002/7, Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2002; Office of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Tertiary Education Strategy 2007–2012, Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2006. 5. Duncan, op.cit. 6. Performance-Based Research Fund Working Group, Investing in Excellence: The Report of the Performance-Based Research Fund Working Group, Ministry of Education and Transition Tertiary Education Commission, Wellington, 2002.

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___________________________________________________ 7. WG Scott and HM Scott, University Income and Student Numbers Between 1980 and 2002, Association of University Staff of New Zealand, Wellington, 2004. 8. Deloitte , University Staff Remuneration & Resourcing - A Comparison of NZ and Selected International Data, New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee and the Association of University Staff of New Zealand, Wellington, 2005. 9. Statistics NZ, Research and Development Survey 2004, Statistics NZ, Wellington, 2005. 10. Tertiary Education Commission, ‘Performance Based Research Fund’, Tertiary Education Commission, no date, viewed on 20 July 2007, http://www.tec.govt.nz/templates/standard.aspx?id=588. 11. B Opie, ‘Tertiary Education and Research in New Zealand’. Minerva, vol. 42, 2004, pp. 299–307. 12. Tertiary Education Commission, Performance-Based Research Fund: Evaluating Research Excellence: The 2003 Assessment, Tertiary Education Commission, Wellington, 2004. 13. Office of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Tertiary Education Strategy 2007–2012, Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2006, p. 25. 14. Tertiary Education Commission, ‘Performance-based Research Fund Results’, Tertiary Education Commission, 4 May 2007, viewed on 22 May 2007, http://www.tec.govt.nz/templates/NewsItem.aspx?id=1925. 15. M Cullen, ‘Promoting research excellence in New Zealand’, New Zealand Government, 4 May 2007, viewed on 22 May 2007, http://www.beehive.govt.nz/Print/PrintDocument.aspx?DocumentID=29188. 16. Tertiary Education Commission, PBRF Quality Evaluation 2006 Release Summary, Tertiary Education Commission, Wellington, 2007, p. 10, italics added. 17. ibid, p. 72. 18. S Marginson, ‘Global University Rankings’, in Prospects of Higher Education: Globalization, Market Competition, Public Goods and the Future of the University, S. Marginson (ed.), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam (forthcoming). 19. To assist the reader with assessing my stance in this chapter, I was rated ‘B’ in 2003. As far as I know, I am the only member of academic staff in New Zealand who has deliberately published his PBRF quality score information which is normally considered to be private - and I first did so in a magazine article in 2004. See: G Duncan, ‘Avoiding Tick-box Compliance’. New Zealand Education Review, vol. 9, 28 April–4 May 2004, pp. 14–15. 20. T Hazeldine and J Kurniawan, ‘Impact and Implications of the Performance-based Research Fund Research Quality Assessment Exercise’, in Evaluating the Performance-based Research Fund: Framing the Debate,

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___________________________________________________ L. Bakker, J. Boston, L. Campbell & R. Smyth (eds), Institute of Policy Studies, Wellington , 2006, pp. 249–284, p. 278.

Bibliography Cullen, M., ‘Promoting research excellence in New Zealand’. New Zealand Government, 4 May 2007, viewed on 22 May 2007, http://www.beehive.govt.nz/Print/PrintDocument.aspx?DocumentID= 29188. Deloitte, University Staff Remuneration & Resourcing - A Comparison of NZ and Selected International Data. New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee and the Association of University Staff of New Zealand, Wellington, 2005. Duncan, G., ‘Avoiding Tick-box Compliance’. New Zealand Education Review, vol. 9, 28 April–4 May 2004, pp. 14–15. Duncan, G., ‘Pouvoir et Savoir: The Tertiary Education Strategy and the Will to Know’. New Zealand Journal of Tertiary Education Policy, vol. 1, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1–9, retrieved 6 March 2007, http://www.aus.ac.nz/publications/Ejournal/Vol1No1/Vol1No1.htm. Hazeldine, T. and Kurniawan, J., ‘Impact and Implications of the Performance-based Research Fund Research Quality Assessment Exercise’. In Evaluating the Performance-based Research Fund: Framing the Debate, L. Bakker, J. Boston, L. Campbell & R. Smyth (eds), Institute of Policy Studies, Wellington, 2006, pp. 249–284. Lyotard, J-F., The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1984. Marginson, S., ‘Global University Rankings’. In Prospects of Higher Education: Globalization, Market Competition, Public Goods and the Future of the University, S. Marginson (ed.), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam (forthcoming). Office of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Tertiary Education Strategy 2002/7. Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2002. Office of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Tertiary Education Strategy 2007–2012. Ministry of Education, Wellington, 2006. Olssen, M. and Peters, M.A., ‘Neoliberalism, Higher Education and the Knowledge Economy: From Free Market to Knowledge Capitalism’. Journal of Education Policy, vol. 20, May 2005, pp. 313–345. Opie, B., ‘Tertiary Education and Research in New Zealand’. Minerva, vol. 42, 2004, pp. 299–307. Performance-Based Research Fund Working Group, Investing in Excellence: The Report of the Performance-Based Research Fund Working

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___________________________________________________ Group, Ministry of Education and Transition Tertiary Education Commission, Wellington, 2002. Scott, W.G. and Scott, H.M., University Income and Student Numbers Between 1980 and 2002. Association of University Staff of New Zealand, Wellington, 2004. Statistics NZ, Research and Development Survey 2004. Statistics NZ, Wellington, 2005. Tertiary Education Commission, PBRF Quality Evaluation 2006 Release Summary. Tertiary Education Commission, Wellington, 2007. Tertiary Education Commission, ‘Performance Based Research Fund’, Tertiary Education Commission, no date, viewed on 20 July 2007, http://www.tec.govt.nz/templates/standard.aspx?id=588. Tertiary Education Commission, Performance-Based Research Fund: Evaluating Research Excellence: The 2003 Assessment. Tertiary Education Commission, Wellington, 2004. Tertiary Education Commission, ‘Performance-based Research Fund Results’. Tertiary Education Commission, 4 May 2007, viewed on 22 May 2007, http://www.tec.govt.nz/templates/NewsItem.aspx?id=1925.

Conceptions of Knowledge and the Modern University Francine Rochford The idea of knowledge as a “product” is a feature of the current conversation about higher education in Australia. This conceptualises education as an instrument, with which students are fashioned into employable units, or as an engine of innovation, through which industry obtains competitive advantage. Whereas these are legitimate roles, emphasis on these along understates the importance of universities. Alternative conceptions of knowledge, and the ways in which the university contributes to knowledge, are not represented in policy discourse, which is captured by economic conceptions of the “knowledge culture”, applied to the knowledge and knowledge management needs of industry. This has self-replicating consequences, as our conceptions of knowledge organise and regulate the way we live and make sense of the world. This chapter will consider the effect on the university sector of a policy regime which privileges economic knowledge. It will consider in particular the potential of the emergent federal policy for “diversity” in higher education providers, and its potential to foster a knowledge culture. It will also consider the application of Florida’s conception of the creative economy, and the way in which attempts to foster creativity in Florida’s terms may perversely generate homogeneity in the Australian university sector. Keywords: University, student, knowledge, Richard Florida, creative class, knowledge culture 1.

Introduction The context and criteria for ‘usefulness’ change, and for Australian higher education institutions to survive they must continue to make themselves and their students relevant.1

In modern Australia “education is seen primarily as a contribution to productivity, not as a part of the general personal growth of the individual nor the general progress of humankind.”2 It is frequently asserted that Australia is a knowledge-based economy, whose “production, diffusion and use of technology and information are key to economic activity and sustainable growth.”3 Adaptation to a knowledge-based economy places new demands on higher education,4 as knowledge is incorporated into economic production functions.5 Economic growth driven by knowledge is said to be supported by universities’ capacity to train a qualified and adaptable labour force, generate new knowledge, and build the capacity to access knowledge and adapt it to local

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______________________________________________________________ use.6 A clear priority of a publicly funded university system is to manage universities so that these capacities are developed. Understandably, there are frequent assertions that the commodification of knowledge has undermined the “real” role of the university. However, it has been asserted in Federal Government policy documents that a “professionally focused education” is not inconsistent with a “liberal, general education”: An appropriate way to distinguish higher education from other educational provision is through the effective coupling and integration of the generic outcomes of a general education with preparation for specialised and professional participation in the workforce.7 This chapter will firstly consider the shift in the idea of knowledge that has gained currency - the reframing of knowledge as a commodity to be managed and marketed. It will then consider the process of application of that conception to individual universities, resulting in a ubiquity in the economic conception of knowledge to the exclusion of other possible ways of seeing - or knowing. It will assess the impact of these changes in the university sector, focussing in particular on the process by which an increasingly homogenous university sector is suppressing the capacity to develop openness to new ways of knowing. Despite a federal government policy direction intended to create diversity in higher education, the underlying premise upon which the policy is based is the utilitarian vision of the university as a supplier to industry. A narrow view of knowledge as a commodity to be packaged by the university and delivered to the students, and of students to be packaged and delivered, jobready, to industry,8 threatens the future role of Australian universities even, perversely, in delivering the economic outcomes to which it is directed. 2.

Steering Towards the Market The neo-liberal conception of the university, which prevails in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom,9 adopts market mechanisms to position the university so that it supports economic growth. St. George argues that it is a characteristic of this model to reduce of the role of government in higher education, and to create a market within which universities compete against each other. The government creates a policy framework, an “enabling regulatory environment,” and “appropriate financial incentives”10 - steering mechanisms characteristic of new public management.11 There is a “remarkable congruity”12 in changes to tertiary education policies across many countries. St George says that this “reflects a coherent policy agenda which is promoted through interlocking networks of international actors and agencies, which cross-fertilize with the officials, politicians, entrepreneurs and commentators who influence policy at the national

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______________________________________________________________ level.”13 She attributes this congruity to the influence of the World Bank, and its assertion of “self-evident truths,” all tending to a suite of market solutions to higher education, including user-charges and student loans.14 Universities’ acknowledged contributions to economic growth are most clearly demonstrated, and thus most frequently asserted by compliant institutions, by direct contributions to industry: industry-specific research, the training and development of potential employees15 and the development of industry-oriented policy. This is, in part, an externally steered process: the fundamental shifts which have changed the way in which the university is viewed by society and the way in which the university considers and talks about itself are motivated partly by a state interest in the university sector, rather a conversion directed by the universities themselves. The justifications for the shift from a state-centred to a (state-sanctioned) market-driven system of university education have three common themes: the application of new institutional economics and new public management theory to the universities,16 resulting in the privatization of the concept of tertiary education; the necessity to broaden the traditional model of the university to meet contemporary economic and social needs;17 and the need for fiscal restraint.18 The impact on the university has been to effect two simultaneous but apparently conflicting shifts: the university has had to become more market-oriented and responsive to a “clientele,” and has also had to concede a loss of autonomy to the state. The autonomous university has been replaced by a university “system” with the consequence that co-operative planning of higher education is possible.19 The demise of the self-governing university has been prompted by the exertion of financial pressure on the university sector which has, by a process of compliance with guidelines upon which funding is contingent, resulted in a closer attachment of the university to the state in all but structure. The university has, in public consciousness, moved from the position of autonomous institution to one more analogous to a privatised utility. Universities have reoriented themselves in response to these steering mechanisms. The most direct consequences can be seen in the response of the more vulnerable, often new institutions, which have formulated their strategic plans to demonstrate their commitment to the new discourse. The University of Technology, Sydney Corporate Plan notes that it “is committed to close interaction with the professions, business, government and the wider community in promoting scholarship, research, continuing education, consultancy and technology transfer.” Deakin University states in its mission that its “teaching and learning, its research, its partnerships and its international programs, will be: Relevant, Innovative, and Responsive.” Charles Sturt University says it “will be a bold and innovative leader in providing an accessible, adaptable and challenging learning environment to develop graduates and research that meet the needs of its regional, national

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______________________________________________________________ and international communities.” The mission statement of Charles Darwin University states that “the University will provide education, training, research and related services locally, nationally and internationally to support and advance the social, cultural, intellectual and economic development of Australia’s Northern Territory.” Most universities have altered their research and teaching priorities. Kemmis et al note that although, on the one hand, institutions and institutional purposes and functions are and are becoming more diverse, on the other, government regulation, inter-institutional mimicry and widely-shared academic values and norms are producing tendencies towards convergence, ‘isomorphism’ and uniformity.20 However, there are less direct implications arising - and resulting in - the privileging of economic knowledge. The re-orientation of higher education to produce the “Enterprise University”21 can result in the “Taylorisation” of curricula,22 particularly in the context of massification, internationalisation and multi-campus teaching, requiring consistency, commonality of curricula, texts and teaching materials. Schapper and Mayson write of the “wresting of intellectual labour from academic staff by corporate decision makers, and the consequent relegation of academics to the role of process labourers23 Academic decision making is subordinated to business ends. Universities themselves have been co-opted into the process of validating the restricted conception of knowledge. The necessity, in the parlous circumstances of Australian Higher Education,24 to react to the prescriptive requirements of Higher Education funding models, forces universities to remodel themselves to suit government priorities.25 This capacity of the Federal Government to “steer” the functions of universities sits alongside a willingness by universities and academics to engage in the debate on the terms dictated by industry interests.26 Co-option of universities and academic staff to the demands of statesponsored industry interests is not merely a subjugation of intellectual freedom; it provides shape and authority to the limited conceptions of the university.27 Kelsey refers to this capitulation to “consensus-mongering,” contrasting it with the traditional conception of the university as a site of critique and a breeding ground for radical ideas.28 However, it is not just a capitulation. It is a validation of the conceptions of knowledge being peddled. Universities and academics are complicit in diminishing the scope of inquiry and devaluing their own roles.

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______________________________________________________________ 3.

The Commodification of Knowledge It is not entirely true that the roles of academics and universities have been devalued; perhaps it is more correct to say that their knowledge has been given a value, of a precise and measurable kind. It has become a commodity. The idea of knowledge as a commodity is not obvious under traditional understandings. Certainly the products of knowledge - a work, or a piece of legal advice, or the application of medical skill - have been bought and sold for millennia. However, the idea of a package of knowledge transmitted from one person to another is, conceptually, a recent development. The idea of “knowledge transmission” became entrenched in our cultural understanding of knowledge contemporaneously with, and perhaps as a result of, two social movements. The first was the contractualisation of the university-student relationship.29 Although this construction of the university-student relationship is by no means certain in law, the contractual paraphernalia is increasingly being introduced in universities’ treatment of students, with the result that the relationship will certainly become contractual. This will affect our understandings of the suite of relationships between students, academics and the universities. The privileging of contract in this area, as in many other relationships in a neo-liberal society, will constrain other understandings of the relationship and of the university generally.30 However, it will also constrain the ideas of “knowledge” as it is transmitted in universities. When the university is seen to be in a contract with the student, there is an expectation that the student will “acquire” something measurable. A failure to define and then deliver that measurable outcome gives rise to the risk of litigation. The university responds to this risk by requiring further delineation and definition of what is to be taught, the method that is to be used, and how it is to be assessed. This process has the effect of sinking other forms of discourse. The second social movement giving rise to the concept of ‘knowledge transmission’ is the ‘knowledge culture’ concept, arising in business management thinking, which uses concepts such as ‘knowledge management’31 and ‘knowledge assets’.32 These understandings of knowledge as a product do not diminish the importance of new ‘knowledge’ – ‘lifelong learning’ is significant in government policy as a contributor to economic growth, and is a staple ingredient of business management. However, these conceptions of knowledge are still premised on the economic significance of the outcome of application of knowledge. The Australian higher education funding environment requires universities to ‘account’ for public funding by showing that it is providing society with the skills needed for economic growth.33 The lifelong learning policy agenda is built on assumptions about the importance of skills in the new economy. Almost all industrial sectors are increasingly knowledge based and economic returns are obtained from a range of intangible

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______________________________________________________________ inputs, one of which is workers’ skills. Participation in education and training is increasing and economic rewards are flowing to people with high skills. 34 Alternative conceptions of knowledge will still be developed by individuals and groups of individuals. However, knowledge without a recognisable value, incapable of commodification, or commodified but catering to a shrinking market, loses the cache which enables its creators to negotiate the space they need to continue their work. Alternative sources of funding, such as those available from philanthropic sources to older universities or overseas universities, do not exist in sufficient quantities in Australia to temper the effect of these developments. Industry funding also comes with caveats and restrictions on public access to the knowledge generated. Florida notes that [u]niversities … require funding to pursue their objectives. There is a fundamental tension between the pursuit of excellence and the need for financial resources. Although industry funding does not necessarily hinder the quest for eminence, industry funds can, and increasingly do, come with restrictions, such as control over publishing or excessive secrecy requirements, which undermine the university’s ability to establish academic prestige.35 Systemically, therefore, there is continued pressure to prioritise conceptions of knowledge that demonstrably support the Australian economic infrastructure. 4.

Higher Education and the Perversity of Diversity More recent developments in government policy have focused on the encouragement of “diversity” in higher education.36 The Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth) has, as one of its objects “to support a higher education system that is characterised by quality, diversity and equity of access.”37 However, diversity has a particular meaning in current political thinking. The diversity objective is tempered by the contextual riders that it is a further objective of the Act to support a system that “contributes to the development of cultural and intellectual life in Australia”38 and “is appropriate to meet Australia’s social and economic needs for a highly educated and skilled population.”39 New policy initiatives designed to create diversity in higher education refer to the desire to encourage a range of different characteristics in different universities40 with a view to creating a competitive market environment. However, the primary drivers in the market for higher education are economic, rather than cultural. Marginson describes this as the “economisation” of the university, by which he means

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______________________________________________________________ the imagining and organising the work of the university, as a process of economic production, in which corporate universities compete in an economic market for student and business customers, and outputs of universities are confined to benefits owned by individuals.41 In the context of an economised university, diversity is a market imperative. This economic understanding was amplified in the 2006-07 budget, and the Realising Our Potential package which implemented it, including a $209 million “Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund” which “will promote structural reform by universities to enable greater specialisation, diversity and responsiveness to local labour market needs.”42 The package of reforms included provision of funding for “flexibility,” more “responsive” universities - to be created by relaxing the caps on Commonwealth supported places and domestic full fee paying undergraduate student places. This is a weak form of diversity - market diversity, or rather, the strategy for steering diversity in the market for training for the labour market. These initiatives adopt the neo-liberal strategy designed to achieve economic growth by de-governmentalisation and marketisation - through developing and enlisting the entrepreneurial choices of autonomous actors, seeking to enhance their own economic interest. Whereas Commonwealth funding is being directed towards universities, it is applied to enable individuals to make choices between a number of diverse universities. This is consistent with the political form of advanced liberal governance, governing “through the regulated and accountable choices of autonomous agents.”43 Universities, positioning themselves in an increasingly crowded market, are competing not only for the student’s money, but for the student’s time. Nimon notes that [t]he 21st century has brought with it a new era in Australian Higher Education, characterised by increased competition and the active pursuit of new markets. This has led to the realisation of the need for tools that will help to distinguish institutions, and aid consumers in ensuring they invest their education dollar as effectively as possible.44 Universities are compelled to adopt the marketing strategies of private corporation to enlist and retain students, who are responding in market terms to the new environment by “shopping around” for the best deal, not only in terms of the prestige of the university or quality and diversity of the program, but also of the range of non-academic indicators, such as job placements in industry, speed of progression, and capacity for on-line or distance learning. These strategies have the potential to increase participation amongst matureaged or remote students, but they also may alter the “product” being placed.

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______________________________________________________________ A distance education experience is not the same as a residential product; a three year accelerated degree is not the same as a four year degree. It is not necessarily inferior, it is just different, and it differs as a result of the functions of the market, not as a result of a change in the nature of the knowledge. Despite the de-governmentalised market for higher education, a neoliberal form of governance requires a scaffold of additional techniques to assist in shaping participant’s conduct. The devices for governing “at a distance” include the “seemingly mundane and neutral devices such as audit, accountancy, measures of best practices, and statistics.45 Universities are constrained by the obligations imposed by government funding models. Perversely, the application of these devices tend towards ubiquity universities become locked into delivery of courses that will be popular, in the sense that they will forward the students’ career outcomes, and also become locked into delivery of courses in a certain way. Curriculum design is premised on the constraints of the modern consumer of packets of knowledge. Course evaluation at many levels of student experience46 places added pressure on academics to respond to requests for “lecture notes,” “marking guides” and a fixed syllabus because that is the product for which the student has contracted,47 and the understanding with which the student enrolled. Universities responding to these pressures diminish the intrinsic rewards sought by creative staff. Many of those most capable of challenging the circumscribed boundaries of “knowledge” in the Enterprise University are not attracted to its straightened circumstances. Universities lose their most creative members. Courses which are less viable in economic terms are rationalised, and universities lose the potential to attract creative students. Recent attempts to reframe the university system so that it is more “diverse” project a serious misunderstanding about the effect that this will have on the economic contribution of the university. These attempts are based on the idea of knowledge as producible, commodified and manageable. They suggest that the product of higher education can be moulded by a combination of government promise and penalty. Of course, this is true. Knowledge as an economic construct is manageable in this way. However, the process of managing knowledge alters it - defines it to create a sub-class of privileged, recognisably economically relevant knowledge, stripping other conceptualisations of knowledge of government support, market kudos, and management recognition. It is the process of re-invention of university priorities to deliver results to governments that threatens creativity. Universities in Australia are vulnerable to government priority-setting. The newer, poorer universities are critically so.48 The idea of manufacturing diversity has echoes in institutional responses to Richard Florida’s account of the rise of the creative class. Florida notes the prevalence of the idea that higher education, managed properly, is an

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______________________________________________________________ engine of economic growth.49 Economic growth is not just a result of a highly trained workforce. Universities and colleges help to shape a regional environment that is open to new ideas and diversity. Universities are the Ellis Islands of the creative age, attracting students and faculty from a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, income levels, sexual orientations, and national origins.50 However, Florida goes on to note that if “policymakers truly want to leverage universities to spawn economic growth, they must adopt a new view … they must focus on strengthening the university’s ability to attract the smartest people from around the world.” Policies which amount to a disincentive to the best academic staff, by, for instance, constraining research time by introduction of a third or a fourth academic teaching period, represent a tension between responding to the needs for diversity in the student market, and responding to the market for good academics. Policies which require commercialisation of research could also amount to a disincentive for academic staff. If academics were interested in commercial outcomes, they may be best placed in organisations in which the infrastructure for commercialisation is in place, rather than in a university where it can be an afterthought, and where significant amounts of academic time must be spent on funding applications or accounting for funds. The idea, moreover, that there is a “linear pathway from university research to commercial innovation to an ever-expanding network of newly formed companies”51 is, in Florida’s view, naïve. “While the university is a key institution of the Creative Economy what’s not so widely understood is the multifaceted role that it plays.”52 Florida’s account of the role of the university still emphasises its economic role. What it does not do is support the idea that there is a direct path between a diverse and creative university sector and economic benefit. He cautions that universities contribute to regional economic development through the production of technology and talent and contributing to the tolerance of their regions. Many of the strategies steered by Government policy and implemented by universities are intended to engineer the types of creativity that incubate economic development. In their application to universities, these presumptions could have perverse effects.53 Attempts to “create diversity”, thus could constrain the natural, serendipitous development of creative clusters in universities, both of the utilitarian kind with direct economic benefit, and of the rarer, more fragile kind fostered in an academic environment of free enquiry.54 The Federal Education, Science and Training Minister, Julie Bishop, is reported to have said:

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______________________________________________________________ I want to see a sector that provides a world-class education of the highest standard for our students, that equips them with the skills employers will seek for the jobs and professions of the 21st century, with universities that create new knowledge to underpin our innovation and competitiveness, that are accountable for their performance, transparent in their operations and efficient in their administration to ensure they are affordable to students and the taxpayers that sustain them. And that means I want to see the development of a diversified higher education sector, made up of universities which differ from each other in terms of mission, discipline mix, course offerings, modes of delivery, management and in academic structure.55 Manufacturing diversity in the terms described by the Minister - re-inventing universities as a range of competitive businesses catering to niche markets of students training to meet the needs of industry - fatally compromises the capacity of the university sector to develop the conditions associated with real creativity. In the conversation about higher education in Australia today diversity, creativity and knowledge mean little more than capacities to respond to market change. As Marginson and Considine also note, “[w]e now know that a national (and global) higher education system modelled as a market game is narrowing rather than broadening the range of identities available. To blunder on blindly with this form of university organisation would be inexcusable.”56 Universities themselves are complicit in this process. In facilitating the development of these capacities in themselves and in their students, have reduced the working life of the academic to “grinding and intellectually deskilling circumstances.”57 The “Enterprise University,” hybrids of academic tradition and business culture,58 have adapted to government steering mechanisms partly by altering governance practices to replicate corporate strategies emphasising efficiency, predictability and control,59 instead of working with the academic culture to utilise the existing mechanisms to enhance creativity - time, academic freedom and a culture of collegiality. Pundits like Florida laud the capacity of new-economy industries to attract creative talent by recognising that intrinsic rewards - challenge, responsibility and freedom to pursue their own projects - motivate more strongly than extrinsic rewards - money.60 Australian universities, perversely, are jeopardising intrinsic motivations by heavily regulating the activities of academics, both in teaching and research. Central control is a characteristic of the Enterprise University, and control is asserted over the public statements of academics,61 responsibility is circumscribed as a result of the Taylorisation of the curriculum, often leading

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______________________________________________________________ to academics becoming mere transmitters of units delivered from remote locations, and academic challenge is subordinated to the short-term imperatives of ensuring satisfactory outcomes in a Research Quality Framework exercise.62 5.

Conclusion In a previous paper I argued that the universities in each age are a product of the requirements of the society in which they operate.63 As a corollary to this, it could be argued that each society is informed, formed and checked by the universities forming and transmitting its conceptions of knowledge. In the attempt to clamber after a perceived industry need, mediated by government mechanisms enforcing the requirement to be more “responsive” to industry needs, universities risk the perverse outcome of stifling the genuine spirit of creative inquiry that both creates the impetus for creativity in industry, and also feeds the creative needs in industry. Universities in Australia are at risk of producing only a poor, constrained range of knowledge, because institutional paucity and systemic devices are creating a self-replicating vision of economic knowledge. Perhaps it could be said that the society of every age gets the university it deserves.

Notes 1. Commonwealth of Australia, Department Education, Science and Training, Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future, 2002, viewed on 30 November 2006, http://www.backingaustraliasfuture.gov.au/publications/striving_for_quality/ 5.htm, Ch 5, at para. [59]. 2. N. Marshall & C. Walsh (eds), Federalism and Public Policy - The Governance and Funding of Australian Higher Education, Federalism Research Centre, The Australian National University, Canberra, 1992, p. 216. The human capital theory underlying this sentiment tends to emphasise the individual acquisition of knowledge of skills - attributes embodied in individuals that are relevant to economic activity – P. Hager, ‘Philosophical Accounts of Learning’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 37, 2005, pp. 649-666, at p. 661. This idea also considers the individual as the correct unit of analysis, de-emphasising the role of communal learning. 3. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The Knowledge-Based Economy: A set of facts and figures, Paris, 1999, p. 7. 4. A Riddell, ‘Globalisation: Emasculation or opportunity for educational planning?’ World Development, vol. 24, 1996, pp. 1357-1372. 5. Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Industry, Science and Resource A Conceptual Paper on the Knowledge Based Economy, 1999.

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______________________________________________________________ 6. World Bank, Constructing Knowledge Societies: New challenges for tertiary education, World Bank, Washington DC, 2002. 7. Commonwealth of Australia, Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future op. cit., ch 2, at para. [10]. 8. G Davis and J Frydenberg, in ‘University focus builds stage for economic innovation’, The Australian, 16 January 2007, p. 10, commenting on California’s successful strategy for economic innovation, note that “quality researchers are not only flocking to California in droves for their training, they tend to remain in the state to commercialise and capitalise on their knowledge.” 9. See, for instance, E St. George, ‘Positioning higher education for the knowledge based economy’, Higher Education, vol. 52, 2006, pp. 589-610. 10. World Bank, op.cit., p. 83. 11. E St. George, op. cit., p. 599. 12. J Kelsey, ‘Privatizing the Universities’, Journal of Law and Society, vol. 25, 1998, pp. 51-70, p. 53, citing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Education Committee, Thematic Review of the First Years of Tertiary Education - Comparative Report [draft] 1997. 13. Kelsey, ibid., p. 53. 14. Ibid., p. 54. 15. T Clark, ‘Lifelong Learning: Contested Ground’, Australian Journal of Adult Learning, vol. 40, 2000 pp. 136-148, at pp. 140, 142, citing P Bourdieu, ‘Cultural reproduction and social reproduction’, in Knowledge, education and social change, R Brown (ed), Tavistock, London 1973. 16. Kelsey, op cit., p. 51. 17. ibid., p. 52. 18. ibid. 19. M Shattock (ed), Creation of a University System. Blackwell Publishing, 1996 considers this development in the context of the University sector in the United Kingdom. 20. S Kemmis, S Marginson, P Porter, F Rizvi, Enhancing Diversity in Australian Higher Education, (Report), University of Western Australia, last updated March 2003, viewed 9 November 2006, http://discussiondocuments.uwa.edu.au/discussion_documents/enhancing_div ersity(report). See also S Marginson, ‘Research as a managed economy’, in Why Universities Matter, T Coady (ed), Allen Unwin, St Leonards 2000, p. 186, who notes that the role of university managers involves “rechannelling the external economic compulsion into a structured system of internal measures and pressures” at p. 189. 21. S Marginson, M Considine, The Enterprise University, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. 22. See, for instance, J M Schapper, S E Mayson, ‘Internationalisation of curricula: An alternative to the Taylorisation of academic work’, Journal of

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______________________________________________________________ Higher Education Policy and Management, vol. 26, 2004, pp.189-205, at p. 195. 23. ibid. 24. See Productivity Commission, Public Support for Science and Innovation, Draft Research Report, 2 November 2006, viewed 16 January 2007 http://www.pc.gov.au/study/science/draftreport/index.html. The Commission noted that “[t]he structure of funding for higher education research has increasingly eroded the share of block grants. Further erosion would risk undermining their important role in enabling meaningful strategic choices at the institutional level.” 25. The Group of Eight argues that the capacity of universities effectively to respond to market signals, as they are expected to do, is compromised by “regulatory constraints and indexation of block funding that falls well short of real increases in costs.” Group of Eight, ‘Response to the Productivity Commission Draft Research Paper on Public Support for Science and Innovation’, December 2006, viewed 16 January 2007, http://www.go8.edu.au/policy/papers/2006/Go8%20response%20to%20the% 20Draft%20PC%20Report%20%2020.12.06%20final.pdf. 26. A Carey, Taking the risk out of democracy, A Lohrey (ed), UNSW Press, Sydney, 1995, p. 90. 27. F Rochford, ‘Is there any clear idea of a university?’ Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, vol. 28, 2006, pp. 147-158, at p. 157. 28. Kelsey, op. cit., p. 60. 29. See, for instance, F Rochford, ‘The relationship between the student and the university’, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Law & Education, vol.3, 1998, p. 28. 30. F Rochford, ‘The contested product of a university education’, (2008) Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management (forthcoming). 31. See, for instance, M Stankosky, (ed) Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management: The Latest in University Research, ButterworthHeinemann, 2004. 32. See, for instance, M Boisot, Knowledge Assets, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998; K E Sveiby, The New Organizational Wealth: Managing & Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets, Berrett-Koehler, 1997. 33. S Weber, ‘The future of the university: The cutting edge’, in Ideas of the University, T Smith (ed.), Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, 1996, pp. 43-75; F. Rochford, ‘Is there any clear idea of a university?’ op. cit. 34. L Watson, Lifelong Learning in Australia, Evaluations and Investigations Programme, 03/13 Department of Education, Science and Training, Commonwealth of Australia, 2003, p. 7. 35. R Florida, Cities and the Creative Class, Routledge, New York, 2005, p. 145.

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______________________________________________________________ 36. Diversity in relation to higher education has several different applications: see V L Meek and F Q Wood, Managing Higher Education Diversity in a Climate of Public Sector Reform, Evaluations and Investigations Programme, Higher Education Division May 1998. Responding to student diversity is a frequently noted priority. However, it is more frequently used to describe institutional diversity: see Marginson and Considine, op. cit., p.252. 37. Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth) s2(1)(a)(i). 38. Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth) s2(1)(a)(ii). 39. Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth) s2(1)(a)(iii). 40. See J Bishop, Speech, Curtin Institute Public Policy Forum 24 July 2006, viewed on 3 November 2006, http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Bishop/2006/07/B0010240706.asp; see also S Kemmis, et al, op cit. 41. S Marginson, The global university and its future’, lecture to Osaka University and other colleagues, Osaka, Japan June 2004, viewed 24 July 2007, http://www.education.monash.edu.au/centres/mcrie/docs/otherrecentpapers/re vised-osaka-lecture-120604.doc>; S Marginson, ‘Competition and Markets in Higher Education: a ‘glonacal’ analysis’, Journal of Policy Futures in Education, vol 2, 2004, pp. 175-244. 42. Department of Education, Science and Training, Backing Australia’s Future - Realising our potential Newsletter 26, May 2007. 43. N Rose, ‘Government, authority and expertise in advanced liberalism’, Economy and Society, vol. 33, 1993, pp. 283-300, p. 298. 44. See, for instance, S Nimon, ‘Quantifying Quality: 21st Century Alchemy’, Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum, AUQA Occasional Publication, October 2006, pp.120-124, at p.120 viewed 19th January 2007, http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/publications/occasional/publicat ions/index.shtml. 45. V Higgins, S Lockie, ‘Re-discovering the social: neo-liberalism and hybrid practices of governing in rural natural resource management’, Journal of Rural Studies, vol. 18, 2002, pp. 419-428, at p.421. 46. See the concerns cited by P Ginns and S Barrie, ‘Response Modality Effects on CEQ and SCEQ responses.’ Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum, AUQA Occasional Publication, 2006 pp.79-82, at p.79, viewed 19th January 2007, http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/publications/occasional/publicat ions/index.shtml. They note that ‘[t]hree performance indicators - the Good Teaching Scale (GTS), the Generic Skills Scale (GSS), and the Overall Satisfaction Item (OSI) - which have been heavily weighted in the [Learning and Teaching Performance Fund] funding model come from the Course Experience Questionnaire.’

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______________________________________________________________ 47. See, for instance, the consequences of the contractual conceptualisation considered in F Rochford, ‘The relationship between the student and the university’, op. cit., and F Rochford, ‘The university student in a take-away world’, Legal Knowledge: Learning, Communicating and Doing ALTA Conference, Melbourne, Australia, 4 - 7 July 2006. 48. Marginson and Considine note that ‘[w]ithout a stable and embracing identity, institutions are deeply vulnerable to the limitations of isomorphism and loss of their way amid a marketing-led strategy. Yet in the post-Dawkins environment in Australia, university identity cannot be assumed, but must be fostered.’ See Marginson and Considine, op. cit., p. 244. 49. See also G Davis and J Frydenberg, op. cit. 50. R Florida, G Gates, B Knudsen and K Stolarick, The University and the Creative Economy. Creative Class Group, December 2006, p. 34, viewed 24 July 2007, http://creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/univ_creative_economy082406.pdf. 51. R Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, New York, 2002, p. 292. 52. ibid. 53. See, for instance, Marginson’s account of the perverse effects of conceptualising research as an economic system in Coady, op. cit., p.193. 54. See Marginson and Considine, op. cit., p. 20, noting the ‘paradox of the present period is that the more governments encourage the deregulation and privatisation of higher education, the less autonomous do the institutions of higher education become. …a new common project [arises] - to imitate the private universities of North America in a search for global relevance.’ See also Kemmis et. al., op. cit., who argue that ‘in the relationships of universities to government, and in their relationships with one another, the rewards for sameness seem greater than the rewards for difference and diversity’ 55. D Coulthard, ‘Bishop’s new game: goals beyond reach or reason’, The Australian, 6 September 2006. 56. Marginson and Considine, op. cit., p. 252. 57. Schapper and Mayson, op. cit., p. 191. 58. Marginson and Considine, op. cit., p. 236. 59. Schapper and Mayson, op. cit., p. 195. 60. R Florida, The Flight of the Creative Class, HarperCollins, New York, 2005, p. 77. 61. F Rochford, Academic Freedom as Insubordination’, Education and the Law, vol.15, 2003, pp. 249-262. 62. Criticism of the Research Quality Framework in Australia, and its equivalents in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, indicate that implementation of these quality mechanisms may have long term unanticipated effects: see, for instance, L G Shewan and A J S Coats, ‘The

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______________________________________________________________ Research Quality Framework and its implications for health and medical research: time to take stock?’ Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 184 (9), 2006, pp. 463-466. The focus on funding has been criticised because ‘a focus on funding allocation may limit the extent to which an RQF can genuinely focus on improving quality since once funding is involved that is all anybody will really focus on.’ Allen Consulting Group, Establishing an Australian Research Quality Framework, Report to The Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training, March 2005, p. 2, viewed on 24 July 2007, http://www.science.org.au/reports/28april05.pdf. 63. See Rochford, ‘Is there any clear idea of a university? op. cit., p. 154.

Bibliography Allen Consulting Group, Establishing an Australian Research Quality Framework, Report to The Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training March 2005, viewed on 24 July 2007, http://www.science.org.au/reports/28april05.pdf. Commonwealth of Australia, Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future Department Education, Science and Training, 2002, viewed on 30 November 2006, http://www.backingaustraliasfuture.gov.au/publications/striving_for_q uality/5.htm Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Industry, Science and Resource A Conceptual Paper on the Knowledge Based Economy. 1999. Bishop, J., Speech. Curtin Institute Public Policy Forum 24 July 2006, viewed on 3 November 2006, http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Bishop/2006/07/B001024070 6.asp. Boisot, M., Knowledge Assets. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998. Bourdieu, P., ‘Cultural reproduction and social reproduction’, in Knowledge, education and social change. R Brown (ed), Tavistock, London 1973. Carey, A., Taking the risk out of democracy. Lohrey A (ed), UNSW Press, Sydney, 1995. Clark, T., ‘Lifelong Learning: Contested Ground’. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, vol. 40, 2000 pp. 136-148. Coulthard, D., ‘Bishop’s new game: goals beyond reach or reason’. The Australian, 6 September 2006. Davis, G., and Frydenberg, J., in ‘University focus builds stage for economic innovation’. The Australian, 16 January 2007, p. 10. Department of Education, Science and Training, Backing Australia’s Future Realising our potential Newsletter 26. May 2007.

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______________________________________________________________ Florida, R., Gates, G., Knudsen, B., Stolarick, K., The University and the Creative Economy. Creative Class Group, December 2006, viewed 24 July 2007, http://creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/univ_creative_economy082406 .pdf. Florida, R., The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, New York, 2002. Florida, R., The Flight of the Creative Class. HarperCollins, New York, 2005. Florida, R., Cities and the Creative Class. Routledge, New York, 2005. Ginns, P., and Barrie, S., ‘Response Modality Effects on CEQ and SCEQ responses.’ Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum, AUQA Occasional Publication, 2006 pp.79-82, at p.79, viewed 19th January 2007, http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/publications/occasional/p ublications/index.shtml. Group of Eight, ‘Response to the Productivity Commission Draft Research Paper on Public Support for Science and Innovation’. December 2006, viewed 16 January 2007, http://www.go8.edu.au/policy/papers/2006/Go8%20response%20to%2 0the%20Draft%20PC%20Report%20%2020.12.06%20final.pdf. Hager, P., ‘Philosophical Accounts of Learning’. Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 37, 2005, pp. 649-666. Higgins, V., Lockie, S., ‘Re-discovering the social: neo-liberalism and hybrid practices of governing in rural natural resource management’. Journal of Rural Studies, vol. 18, 2002, pp. 419-428. Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth). Kelsey, J., ‘Privatizing the Universities’. Journal of Law and Society, vol. 25, 1998, pp. 51-70. Kemmis, S., Marginson, S., Porter, P., Rizvi, F., Enhancing Diversity in Australian Higher Education (Report). University of Western Australia, last updated March 2003, viewed 9 November 2006, http://discussiondocuments.uwa.edu.au/discussion_documents/enhanci ng_diversity(report). Marginson, S., ‘Competition and Markets in Higher Education: a ‘glonacal’ analysis’. Journal of Policy Futures in Education, vol 2, 2004, pp. 175-244. Marginson, S., ‘The global university and its future’. lecture to Osaka University and other colleagues, Osaka, Japan June 2004, viewed 24 July 2007, http://www.education.monash.edu.au/centres/mcrie/docs/otherrecentpa pers/revised-osaka-lecture-120604.doc. Marginson, S., ‘Research as a managed economy’, in Why Universities Matter. Coady, T., (ed), Allen Unwin, St Leonards 2000.

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______________________________________________________________ Marginson, S., Considine, M., The Enterprise University. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. Marshall, N., and Walsh, C., (eds), Federalism and Public Policy - The Governance and Funding of Australian Higher Education. Federalism Research Centre, The Australian National University, Canberra, 1992. Meek L. V., and Wood, F. Q., Managing Higher Education Diversity in a Climate of Public Sector Reform. Evaluations and Investigations Programme, Higher Education Division May 1998. Nimon, S., ‘Quantifying Quality: 21st Century Alchemy’. Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum, AUQA Occasional Publication, October 2006, pp.120-124, at p.120, viewed 19th January 2007, http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/publications/occasional/p ublications/index.shtml. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The KnowledgeBased Economy: A set of facts and figures. OECD, Paris, 1999. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Education Committee, Thematic Review of the First Years of Tertiary Education - Comparative Report. Draft Report, 1997. Productivity Commission, Public Support for Science and Innovation. Draft Research Report 2 November 2006, viewed 16 January 2007 http://www.pc.gov.au/study/science/draftreport/index.html. Riddell, A., ‘Globalisation: Emasculation or opportunity for educational planning?’ World Development, vol. 24, 1996, pp. 1357-1372. Rochford, F., ‘Academic Freedom as Insubordination’. Education and the Law, vol.15, 2003, pp. 249 - 262. Rochford, F., ‘Is there any clear idea of a university?’ Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, vol. 28, 2006, pp. 147-158. Rochford, F., ‘The relationship between the student and the university’. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Law & Education, vol.3, 1998, pp. 28. Rochford, F., ‘The contested product of a university education’. (2008) Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management (forthcoming). Rochford, F., ‘The university student in a take-away world’. ALTA Conference 2006 Legal Knowledge: Learning, Communicating and Doing Melbourne, Australia, 4 - 7 July 2006. Rose, N., ‘Government, authority and expertise in advanced liberalism’. Economy and Society, vol. 33, 1993, pp. 283-269. Schapper, J.M., and Mayson, S.E., ‘Internationalisation of curricula: An alternative to the Taylorisation of academic work’. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, vol. 26, 2004, pp.189-205.

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______________________________________________________________ Shewan, L.G., and Coats, A.J.S., ‘The Research Quality Framework and its implications for health and medical research: time to take stock?’ Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 184 (9), 2006, 463-466. St. George, E., ‘Positioning higher education for the knowledge based economy’. Higher Education, vol. 52, 2006, pp. 589-610. Stankosky, M. (ed), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management: The Latest in University Research. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004. Shattock, M., (ed), The Creation of a University System. Blackwell Publishing, 1996. Sveiby, K.E., The New Organizational Wealth: Managing & Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets. Berrett-Koehler, 1997. Watson, L., Lifelong Learning in Australia. Evaluations and Investigations Programme, 03/13 Department of Education, Science and Training, Commonwealth of Australia, 2003. Weber, S., ‘The future of the university: The cutting edge’, in Ideas of the University. T. Smith (ed.), Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, 1996. World Bank, Constructing Knowledge Societies: New challenges for tertiary education. World Bank, Washington DC, 2002.

Knowledge as Practice: Implications for the Tertiary Sector Stephen Healy Contemporary criticisms of market-oriented reforms to higher education, focused by notions such as that of the ‘knowledge economy’, have longstanding antecedents. Awareness of the commodification of knowledge dates back to ancient Greece while concerns that universities impede, rather than facilitate, the progress of knowledge were voiced from their 12th century beginnings. This chapter argues that conventional, a-historical cognitivist notions of knowledge obscure how contemporary concerns might be addressed through engaging the practices involved in generating, applying and imparting knowledge. A practice-focused epistemology facilitating this view is outlined and used to illuminate current changes in the Australian tertiary sector. Recent governmentality and anthropological analyses of changes in the New Zealand and UK Tertiary sectors illustrate how Australian moves to ‘corporatise’ the tertiary sector reflect broader political trajectories. These changes affect work and learning practices, changing the knowledge universities produce and impart, by imposing a rubric of calculative practices involving multiple forms of quantitative indicators and such things as benchmarking, workload modelling and performance appraisals. The implications of this analysis are discussed in regards to both contemporary academic life and broader debates regarding the character of knowledge. Keywords: Knowledge, commodification, representationalism, non-representational epistemology, Foucault, universities. 1.

epistemology, neo-liberalism,

Knowledge, Practices and Power In the customs and institutions of schools, academies, colleges and similar bodies destined for the abode of learned men and the cultivation of learning, everything is found adverse to the progress of knowledge (Francis Bacon).1 Learning is itself a trade (Samuel Johnson).2

Peter Burke details how contemporary concerns over standards of learning and scholarship and, in particular, how the commercial dimensions to these concerns have long-standing antecedents.3 He notes, for example, how Plato criticised the sophists for selling knowledge and how Cicero formulated “[t]he idea of knowledge as property (possessio).”4 Burke further details how Petrarch “denounced people who viewed books as if they were a commodity (quasi mercium)” in the fourteenth century, and how the preamble of the

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_____________________________________________________________ British Copyright Act of 1709, which passed “for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books,” reflected these tendencies.5 In addition, Burke analyses how the rise of universities commonly countered, rather than promoted, the development of new ideas: the rise of cities and the rise of universities occurred together in Europe from the twelfth centuries onwards…..The universities..were not, generally speaking, the locales in which new ideas developed. They suffered from ‘institutional inertia…Over the long term, what we see are cycles of innovation followed by.‘routinisation.’”6 From their earliest beginnings universities were focused upon “transmitting knowledge as opposed to discovering it”7 and although innovations certainly occurred “[t]he creative, marginal and informal groups of one period regularly turn into the formal, mainstream and conservative organizations of the next generation or next-but-one.”8 Contemporary concerns regarding tertiary sector standards and conditions might, therefore, be more a matter of ‘routinisation’ rather than of decline relative, to what are commonly taken to be, absolute a-historical standards. This chapter takes this hypothesis seriously and attempts to delineate what it is that might be understood to be at the centre such a process of ‘routinisation’. The contemporary emphasis upon knowledge as arbiter of competitive advantage, underpinning the neo-liberal ‘market turn’ taken by the tertiary sector internationally in recent decades,9 is a logical consequence of the historical tendencies sketched above. This dynamic was witnessed in Australia in the Dawkins reforms of the late 1980s and more recently in the 2003 Nelson reforms,10 resulting in the rapid ‘corporatisation’ of Australia’s universities. The consequences of these developments include the erosion of traditional university governance structures and processes and, with rapidly increasing student numbers, a ‘massification’ of the Australian tertiary system.11 This chapter will, however, concentrate upon the implications of these changes for the knowledge that universities produce and impart, rather than these changes themselves. Traditional conceptions of knowledge, which take knowledge to be a property of mind, have difficulty in explaining how changes in processes and procedures change knowledge, and so an alternative view equating knowledge with knowledge generating practices and contexts is summarized below. A. Representational and Non-Representational Epistemologies Mainstream Western epistemology conceives of knowledge in terms of independent cognitive representations of the world, usually codified in the form of propositional statements.12 From this perspective the ‘facts’ of

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______________________________________________________________ natural science are considered unambiguous representations of a non-human, material world, while knowledge in the humanities and social sciences is, analogously, taken to represent ‘context’. ‘Context’ is variously understood through representations of an ‘internal’ human domain (i.e. ‘preferences’, ‘values’, ‘interests’ etc) or a broader socio-cultural one (i.e. social structures such as economic class or patriarchy, socio-cultural constructs such as ‘discourses’, or broader socio-cultural parameters such as ‘power’ etc) although these are all routinely treated as a setting for ‘facts’. These cognitive representations are, in addition, understood to reside in individual minds, with this emphasis upon autonomous knowing individuals resulting in very specific understandings regarding the communication of knowledge. Irwin and Michael highlight some of the problems with this perspective through their description of questionnaire research as treating people: as a repository of knowledge [t]hat is…cognitive containers [from] which one can rummage around…and extract golden nuggets of correct knowledge…putrid lumps of incorrect knowledge, or detect the absence of any knowledge altogether.13 Therefore, the conventional epistemological identification of knowledge with discrete, well-defined cognitive representations (i.e. ‘nuggets’ or ‘lumps’) directly lends itself to viewing knowledge as a ‘commodity’. This underlines how the idea of knowledge as a commodity is not new and how current concerns over the ‘commodification’ of knowledge need to look beyond conventional notions of knowledge and place contemporary developments in an historical perspective. Conventional, representational notions of knowledge, normally used to focus and articulate concerns over ‘commodification, are most fundamentally concerned with matters of justification. That is they are focused by matters concerning the ‘justification’ of the representations of concern. The most basic example of this being the justification of the ‘truth’ status of particular knowledge claims. When this ‘truth’ status is granted representational epistemologies assert that these representations act as a straightforward mirror onto the world. However, this conflation of cognitive representations with the world from which they are abstracted exacts a price. The straightforward one-to-one relationship that representational epistemologies assert exists between cognitive representations and the elements of the world from which they’re abstracted acts to remove the processes, procedures and practices that generate the cognitive representations of concern from view. The traditional epistemological emphasis upon knowledge as a discrete property of mind thus taking the, commonly complex, processes, procedures and practices through which

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_____________________________________________________________ knowledge is produced, applied and imparted, to be of no consequence. It is this move that allows traditional representational epistemologies to conflate cognitive representations with the world from which they’re abstracted. Only then can cognitive representations be conceived as a simple mirror onto the world. Facts ‘speak for themselves’ for precisely this reason. We grant them autonomy - status as ‘things in themselves’ - by denying the effort and artifice involved in their manufacture.14 Current tendencies toward the further ‘commodification’ of knowledge are illuminated below by shedding light on the form this ‘effort and artifice’ takes in the contemporary tertiary sector. In this particular case the effort and artifice reflected in changes to the processes, procedures and practices of universities. This analysis first, however, requires an epistemology able to explain and account for the role of knowledge generating processes and practices, matters that traditional representational epistemologies discount. Non-representational epistemologies don’t deny cognitive representations but instead of “…start[ing]...thinking about knowledge from representations. They come last, rather than first, in the account”.15 These epistemologies focus upon knowledge generating practices rather than on the representational content of the statements that these practices generate or involve. The term practices is, however, not intended to correspond to regularised patterns of human activity but rather to the extended alignments of people and things (skills, theories, interests, institutions, social networks, texts, equipment and so on) in and through which knowledge is constituted, applied imparted and so on. These practices/alignments are thus situated, embodied, socio-material in character and spatially and temporally dynamic. This characterisation resonates with a recent anthropological clarification of the distinction between knowledge and information: …information may be communicated, in propositional or semi-propositional form, from generation to generation. But information, in itself, is not knowledge, nor do we become any more knowledgeable through its accumulation. Our knowledgeability consists, rather, in the capacity to situate such information, and understand its meaning, within the context of a direct perceptual engagement with our environments.16 From this perspective knowledge is situated information and, as a result, varies with the specificities of situation and circumstance. This insight is echoed, and corroborated, by research on organisational knowledge and learning that emphasises the pivotal role of organisational practices, systems and activities. Such work interprets organisations in terms of ‘distributed knowledge’17 or ‘socially distributed activity’ systems,18 with a key concern

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______________________________________________________________ being “the dynamics of the systems through which knowing is accomplished”.19 This focus upon the ‘dynamics of…knowing’ reflecting the non-representational stress on practices by emphasising the role of broader organisational factors, such as those of structure, process, procedure, culture and leadership in the generation, utilisation and communication of knowledge. B. Knowledge as Power The non-representational emphasis upon knowledge as practice also sheds light on how knowledge operates as power. The distinction between knowledge associated practices and the representational statements these generate equates with Foucault’s distinction between “...a discursive field of knowledge (savoir)…[and]…the specific statements held true at specific points within that field (connaissances)”.20 So whereas conventional representational perspectives emphasise specific propositional statements (‘connaissances’) the non-representational view is concerned with the activities (‘savoir’) that give rise to these statements. In the Foucauldian view power arises from, and is exercised across, alignments of people and things, analogous to those comprising knowledge-generating activities. Where these alignments meet and overlap knowledge and power come together and coconstitute each other. Foucault famously described the emergence of such mutually defining sets of relationships with regard to madness, sexuality and the forms of domination and discipline implicit in modern society and institutions.21 So whereas representational thinking tends to conceive of power as a property of powerful people or institutions, power in this Foucauldian sense is an effect spread across, and resulting from, networks of relationships (this does not deny the reality of powerful people or institutions but rather identifies their power with the maintenance of complex sets of relationships). Knowledge and power correlate with each other when the practices that constitute a body of knowledge configure and reconfigure sets of relationships in ways that enable and constrain particular options and choices. Joseph Rouse, who elaborates the relevance of these ideas for contemporary science,22 advances few ideas about the broader political implications of these insights. These are addressed by Foucault’s work on governmentality that describes the ensemble of institutions, procedures, tactics, knowledges, technologies and calculations deployed in the service of government.23 Governmentality theory is particularly concerned with the various ways that knowledge services government and, most specifically, with the practices and strategies that define and substantiate the ‘truths’ through which governments legitimate and sustain themselves.

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_____________________________________________________________ 2.

Knowledge, Audit and Performance [S]taff members are…bound within a web of reciprocal relations, secured through multiple regimes of audit and accountability. Within this structure, academic freedom is inevitably constrained. In order to maximise productivity, the new state-authorised managerialism utilises technologies of accountability and audit to an unprecedented extent.24

Neo-liberalism is obsessed with measurement and classification because “[n]umbers…help…the operation of government…[by]…mark[ing] …out…a grid of norms allowing evaluation and judgement”.25 This evaluative ‘grid of norms’ is witnessed in the contemporary university system by the pervasiveness of audits, the multiplication of quantitative indicators of all kinds and, in particular, the ‘benchmarking’ of activities to ensure ‘quality’.26 Review and evaluation are the order of the day with Australia, at the time of writing (mid-2007) about to embark on a new ‘Research Quality Framework’ (planned for 2008) modelled closely on the one recently dropped by the UK Tertiary sector (because, while resource intensive, it achieved little beyond that possible using existing data such as publication and citation records). However, “numbers do not merely inscribe a pre-existing reality. They constitute it”.27 In other words while traditional representational perspectives take corporate imperatives to be eroding tertiary standards in an absolute sense the analysis presented here suggests that changes in current practices, most notably those involving the imposition of an ‘evaluative grid of norms’, are a key to the constitution of contemporary realities. In other words rather than characterizing current problems in terms of an erosion of traditional standards the view developed here relates current standards to current practices, most specifically, a complex ensemble of evaluative, primarily quantitative, practices. While there are various ways to characterize these practices, ‘competition’ - one of the most fundamental principles of the neo-liberal conceptual vocabulary - is a particularly effective lens through which to view them. Neo-liberalism places the competitive, globalised environment in which contemporary universities operate uppermost in the organization and management of the university. The resultant emphases on audit, ‘benchmarking’ and ‘quality’ being intended to facilitate the ability of ‘clients’ (the word used today to describe students and those sponsoring research) to chose, via such means as ‘league tables’, between different institutions. Internal activities are increasingly resourced using marketmodelled competition on the basis of indicators such as the Equivalent Full Time Students (EFTS) accredited each activity. This emphasis upon competition has spawned many new indicators, such as graduate opinion

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______________________________________________________________ surveys, in addition to deploying existing ones, such as staff-student ratios, all of which are increasingly significant in framing and shaping contemporary academic life. Such changes along with the, parallel, increasing ‘massification’ of universities has witnessed not only larger classes and the decline, and in some cases disappearance, of areas of low enrolment (the classics have recently suffered this fate in Sydney), but also eroded academic collegiality. Units (Faculties, Schools, Departments) resourced on an EFTS basis have to compete internally, providing a significant disincentive to collegial collaboration. The author, for example, has found it increasingly hard to maintain the integrity of an interdisciplinary pre-honours course that has traditionally featured guest lecturers from other parts of the university because of these pressures. Internal competition has also reinforced the segregation of disciplines, creating a silo-driven mentality that acts against the interdisciplinarity many see as essential to forging effective responses to contemporary challenges. There are, in addition, more subtle, effects being wrought on academic life through procedures such as workload modelling and performance appraisals. Larner and Le Heron in a discussion of such procedures and practices in the NZ context note that: they are not simply disciplinary mechanisms (although they are certainly that), but are increasingly the site around which workplace politics are being played out. This suggests a certain internalization and normalization of comparative techniques amongst academics.28 Larner and Le Heron are suggesting (reflecting Rose’s observation about numbers constituting the practices they ‘inscribe’) that practices such as performance appraisals do not simply reflect academic life but act to structure its form and content. But how do these practices influence the knowledge universities produce? The evidence suggests that these restrictions and constraints on academic practices, the ongoing erosion of collegiality and ‘massification’ of higher education significantly influence the practicalities of teaching. Shore and Wright quote Johnson (writing in 1994): [i]t no longer really matters how well an academic teaches and whether or not he or she sometimes inspires their pupils…it is far more important that they have produced plans for their courses, bibliographies, outlines of this, that and the other, in short all the paraphernalia of futile

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_____________________________________________________________ bureaucratization required for assessors who come from on high like emissaries from Kafka’s castle.29 The seemingly insatiable appetite of contemporary university bureaucracies for indicators of all kinds will be familiar to working academics across much of the world today. Shore and Wright conclude that audit: not only..render[s] people and institutions ‘auditable’, it actively encourages the ritualization of performance and tokenistic gestures of accountability – such as rigid paper systems and demonstrable audit trails – to the detriment of real effectiveness.”30 While Shore and Wright are particularly concerned with the implementation of these measures through external agencies the author’s experience suggests that significant damage is wrought through their devolution to the level of the working academic. ‘[T]he paraphernalia of futile bureaucratization’ increasingly occupies time once devoted to core tasks - teaching and research. Moreover, in the author’s experience, the new practices, procedures and processes, such as new forms of indicators, are commonly poorly defined and resourced. As a result there is a pervasive tendency to simply give the system what it wants (i.e. reassurance of ‘continual improvement’). This is also, in the author’s experience, ensuring a commonly counter-productive uniformity in teaching practices. It is, perhaps, no accident that the tendency of this ‘paraphernalia of futile bureaucratization’ to standardize knowledge back into information (see Ingold quote, section 1. A above), through the removal of some of the situated, circumstantial specifics in how it is imparted, reflects the arguments of this chapter regarding knowledge as practice. Particularly disturbing is the counterfactual character of the rhetoric of ‘quality’ accompanying these changes. Although “audit systems are themselves immune from public accountability and are rarely subject to the pseudo-market forces which their advocates claim are so essential in the sectors..audited” Shore and Wright incisively detail the failings of these systems.31 Thornton graphically describes this ‘counterfactual character’ for the case of the Australian system: [t]he rapidity with which the market mindset has been accepted and democratic norms eroded is frightening. It is impacting on what is taught, as well as how well it is taught. Economic rationality is now the modus operandi short courses and applied knowledge in conjunction with

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______________________________________________________________ large lectures and exams satisfy the customer’s desire for credentialism.32 So if standards are eroding it is because the evaluative ‘grid of norms’ neoliberalism imposes translates in practice to a ‘paraphernalia of futile bureaucratization’ that: ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ 3.

constrain an academic’s ability to fulfil their core tasks; are focused by ‘tokenistic gestures of accountability’ rather than traditional measures of quality; cater to quantity over quality; favour instrumental/applied insights; & tend to reproduce themselves as a desirable ‘norm’.

Conclusion While the ‘commodification’ of knowledge is likely facilitated by contemporary neo-liberal imperatives, the idea that knowledge takes the form of discrete cognitive representations is at least as old as the ancient Greek beginnings of Western philosophy. Other contemporary concerns regarding declining tertiary standards also have antecedents dating back to the 12th century beginnings of the modern university system. This chapter has argued that rather than any absolute, historical decline in scholarly standards current developments centre upon the structures and practices imposed as a result of the neo-liberal ‘corporatisation’ of the tertiary sector. In that this ‘routinisation’ of neo-liberal ‘norms’ continues longer-term cyclical tendencies in the university system (see Burke quote, beginning section 1 above), rather than any straightforward decline in standards, it is neither absolute nor irreversible. However, this understanding requires that we privilege practice focused non-representational epistemologies over traditional, cognitive representational perspectives. Non-representational perspectives on knowledge illuminate how changes in many of the practices central to academic life affect, detrimentally, not only the working conditions of contemporary academics but also the knowledge they produce and impart. This insight suggests that positive changes are likely to be most constructively facilitated through understanding these changes in academic structures and practices and the role they play. This is underlined by how non-representational perspectives illuminate how these changes to academic structures and practices not only affect knowledge but also constitute regimes of knowledge/power. The author, for example, having recently undergone a ‘performance appraisal’, knows only too well how academics commonly use these ‘structures and practices’ for their own purposes rather than those intended. This is a wellrecognized aspect of Foucauldian sociology - that people (and things) can

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_____________________________________________________________ and do resist the ‘pull’ of normalizing ‘technologies’, such as performance appraisals, toward the establishment of totalizing ‘norms’. This is the case more broadly with many academics maintaining ‘quality’ (in a traditional rather than a neo-liberal sense) in the face of contemporary pressures. The broadly accepted view of knowledge as cognitive representation abets neo-liberalism, however, and acts to make such resistance more difficult than it need be. While the primary concern of representationalism is with matters of justification - that is with the legitimation of representations (i.e. whether they are ‘true’ or not) - of primary concern to practice focused accounts of knowledge are matters of significance. That is with considerations such as “what is at issue and at stake…to whom and to what it matters, and hence with how…[it]…is appropriately or perspicuously described”.33 Countering the negative impacts of neo-liberalism on the tertiary sector thus requires a more widespread understanding that knowledge is a thoroughly circumstantial affair, and that it is the circumstances of the production and reproduction of knowledge with which we should be primarily concerned. Then academics might simply do things differently. While there may not be agreement on what should change, and how it might change, as long as people are working to affect change the future will be otherwise. The challenge being to ensure that it is positively so.

Notes 1. Quoted by: P. Burke, A Social History of Knowledge: from Gutenberg to Diderot, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000, p. 32. 2. ibid., p. 149. 3. ibid. 4. ibid., p. 150. 5. ibid. 6. ibid., pp 33-49. 7. ibid., p. 33. 8. ibid., p. 49. 9. See: G. Delanty, ‘The University in the Knowledge Society’. Organization, vol. 8, 2002, pp. 149-153; & M. Strathern (ed), Audit Culture: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy. Routledge, London and New York, 2000. 10. Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson, Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2003. 11. M. Thornton, ‘Universities: The Governance Trap and What to Do About it’, Australian Fabian Society, viewed on 15 December 2006, http://www.fabian.org.au/876.asp.

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______________________________________________________________ 12. For a straightforward account see: A. Tanesini, An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies. Blackwell, Oxford, 1999, ch.1. 13. A. Irwin and M. Michael, Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge. Open University Press, Maidenhead and Philadelphia, 2003, p. 26. 14. For a case study skillfully illuminating this argument see: B. Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MASS) and London, 1999, ch. 2. 15. Tanesini, op. cit., p. 11. 16. T. Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Routledge, London and New York, 2000, p. 21. 17. H. Tsoukas, ‘The Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System: A Constructivist Approach’. Strategic Management Journal, vol. 17, 1996, pp.11-25. 18. F. Blackler, ‘Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organisations: An Overview and Interpretation’. Organisation Studies, vol. 16, 1995, p. 1038. 19. ibid., p. 1039. 20. J. Rouse, ‘Power/Knowledge’, in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, G. Gutting (ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1994, p. 110. 21. M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish. Penguin Books, London, 1991. M. Foucault, Power - Essential works of Foucault 1954-1984, Volume Three, J.D. Faubion (ed), Penguin Books, London, 2002. 22. J. Rouse, Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1987. Rouse, 1994, op.cit., pp 92114. 23. M. Foucault, Power - Essential works of Foucault 1954-1984, Volume Three, J.D. Faubion (ed), Penguin Books, London, 2002, pp. 201-222. 24. Thornton, op. cit., p. 6. 25. N. Rose, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 212. 26. Larner and Le Heron, op. cit. 27. Rose, op. cit., p. 212. 28. Larner and Le Heron, op. cit., p. 854. 29. ibid., p. 73. 30. ibid., p. 81. 31. S. Shore and S. Wright, ‘Coercive Accountability: the Rise of Audit Culture in Higher Education’, Audit Culture: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy. Routledge, M. Strathern (ed), London and New York, 2000, p. 81. 32. Thornton, op. cit., p. 8. 33. J. Rouse, ‘Understanding Scientific Practices: Cultural Studies of Science as a Philosophical Program’, in The science studies reader, M. Biagioli (ed), Routledge, New York, 1999, p. 449.

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Bibliography Blackler, F., ‘Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organisations: An Overview and Interpretation’. Organisation Studies, vol. 16, 1995, pp. 1021-1046. Delanty, G., ‘The University in the Knowledge Society’. Organization, vol. 8, 2002, pp. 149-153. Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish. Penguin Books, London, 1991. Foucault, M., Power - Essential works of Foucault 1954-1984, Volume Three, J.D. Faubion (ed), Penguin Books, London, 2002. Ingold, T., The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Routledge, London and New York, 2000. Irwin, A., Michael, M., Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge. Open University Press, Maidenhead and Philadelphia, 2003. Larner, W. and Le Heron, R., ‘Neo-liberalising Spaces and Subjectivities: Reinventing New Zealand Universities’. Organisation, vol. 12, 2005, pp. 843-862. Latour, B., Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MASS) and London, 1999. Nelson, B. Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2003. Rose, N., Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999. Rouse, J., Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1987. Rouse, J., ‘Power/Knowledge’, in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, G. Gutting (ed), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1994, pp. 92-114. Rouse, J., ‘Understanding Scientific Practices: Cultural Studies of Science as a Philosophical Program’, in The science studies reader, M. Biagioli (ed), Routledge, New York, 1999, pp. 442- 456. Shore, S. and Wright, S., ‘Coercive Accountability: the Rise of Audit Culture in Higher Education’, Audit Culture: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy. Routledge, M. Strathern (ed), London and New York, 2000, pp. 57-89. Strathern, M. (ed), Audit Culture: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy. Routledge, London and New York, 2000. Tanesini, A., An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies. Blackwell, Oxford, 1999. Thornton, M., ‘Universities: The Governance Trap and What to Do About it’, Australian Fabian Society, viewed on 15 December 2006, http://www.fabian.org.au/876.asp.

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______________________________________________________________ Tsoukas, H., ‘The Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System: A Constructivist Approach’. Strategic Management Journal, vol. 17, 1996, pp.11-25.

Part II Substantive Matters

The Anxiety of Making Academics Over: Resistance and Responsibility in the Academic Development Project Tai Peseta & Catherine Manathunga One effect of the debates about the changing nature of higher education has been the renewed emphasis on the teaching responsibilities of academics and its proper relation to student learning. In response, the higher education sector has witnessed a proliferation of new institutional systems, mechanisms and processes designed to enhance the quality of university teaching and learning. At the forefront of this movement for the implementation of quality is the academic/educational development community – charged with the institutional responsibility of leading teaching and learning change. As academic developers ourselves, implicated in the discursive and strategic work of rendering university teaching and learning a more visible, specific and auditable presence in the academy, the (re)making of academics’ teaching identities carries both pleasure and resistance. On the one hand, there is reward and recognition associated with performances of the good and scholarly university teacher, yet on the other, these new kinds of teacher subjectivities invite forms of moral commitment that appear consistent with fashioning the proper neo-liberal academic subject. This contradiction might be seen as both the beauty and problem of the academic development project. In this paper, we offer a critical deliberation on the academic development project. In particular, we investigate how the academic development community is positioned to make sense of manifestations and enactments of academics’ resistance to pedagogical development efforts. In doing so, we draw attention to a conceptual tension inherent within the academic development project itself – that it must invite resistance and responsibility simultaneously, if it is to contribute at all to debates about the reinvigoration of the University. Keywords: Academic development, academic professionalism, university teaching and learning, academic responsibility, academic resistance. 1.

Introduction There is no reason to think that, in general, university teaching is inadequate. There is no reason to think that there is a need to reform, reorganize, and make accountable the sort of teaching that goes in universities. There is no reason to think that courses of teacher training are necessary for university lecturers. There is no reason to

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_______________________________________________________________ think that such training programs will benefit university lecturers or their students. There is no reason to think that there is a need for a professional body to promote the status of university teaching. There is no reason to think that university lecturers need to adopt a new ethic or vision to complement, supplement, or resist the impositions of such a body.1 With an unusual degree of force, Dennis Hayes advances a view against those whose work and institutional responsibility is to develop and improve university teaching and learning – those like us who identify as academic developers. His principle conclusion is that the flurry to reconstruct or professionalise teaching and learning leads to a university focused on efficiency, calculability, predictability and control. Together, according to Hayes, these forms of organisational order work to diminish the very prospect of higher education. The view is not an atypical one. Criticisms of academic and educational development initiatives have long existed in the corridors of the university. A good number of these critiques are very often produced by developers themselves eager to learn better ways of encouraging others to invest in teaching and learning improvement.2 But even as producers of these critiques, the logic of audit and the rush to demonstrate quality worries us. We too are becoming increasingly anxious, suspicious and wary even, of teaching and learning improvement imperatives that have led to the refashioning of academics’ professional identities. These are imperatives that our work seeks to make possible as a kind of moral or virtuous necessity.3 It could be said after all, that the main business of the academic development project is in encouraging academics to take up the mantle of change toward a teaching practice that is at the very least characterised by reflection, research, scholarship, professionalism and above all, a commitment to the modes and philosophies of student-centred learning. In this sense, there is little ambiguity in the development agenda being advanced. While views such as Hayes’s continue to circulate and are sometimes taken to be speaking back to those agendas that seek the increasing regulation of academic work, those who perform this teaching and learning change work become caught up in the making and making over of academic identities. Our goal in this paper is to explore that tension. It is neither a defence of the academic development project nor an assault against the position (or set of positions) that Hayes’s represents. These views must continue to be made public both as a testament to the particularity of an experience of university teaching and learning but also because they challenge the purpose and veracity of academic development work. So we want to be clear here: our aim is not one of dismissal. Rather, it is to engage

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_______________________________________________________________ with the logic of these kinds of critiques - what we want to position as an enactment of resistance - as an additional resource that supports the academic development community to better connect with the contradictory effects of its work. Our goal is to contribute to the problematic that characterises the academic development project so that a more critical and self-reflexive practice and scholarship can emerge as part of the way in which the academic development community narrates or tells stories about itself. It signals a retreat from a community of practitioners that too easily claims its work as celebratory, progressive and positively change driven. Instead, we seek to retrieve a sceptical ethic at a time when the idea of continuing professional development is being taken up everywhere and taken up with escalating urgency. 2.

The Project of Academic Development: Delineating a Field To first inhabit the field of academic development is really to become oriented to a set of ready-made propositions regarding the nature and scholarship of university teaching and learning, how best to research it, and to develop systems and cultures that recognise and value it. The effort and intended outcome of academic development work is best captured in Paul Ramsden’s often cited epithet: “the purpose of teaching is to make student learning possible”.4 In itself, this is not particularly unusual. Epithets, innocent as they seem, function to organise a field. And like all fields of inquiry, academic development is not immune from delineating a project or outlining a narrative for itself. In the main, that narrative is one where ongoing professional learning for academics is essential for coping with what Ronald Barnett calls the condition of supercomplexity – the continuous production and circulation of uncertainty. The challenge of supercomplexity is precisely that there is no final resolution. Amid supercomplexity, any one question always produces a “multiplication of answers and further questions”… and further, “some of those answers and further questions spring from perspectives, value positions and even ideologies that are mutually incompatible”.5 For those engaged in academic work, supercomplexity signals that the character and work of universities is irrevocably changed and changing. Barnett advances the case that none of the traditional narratives which have framed the idea of the university in the past – constellations – as he terms them can now adequately account for its present or future place, its complicated landscape, or its ongoing paradoxical and contradictory engagements with the world. These narratives of old – knowledge production, democracy, self, critique and emancipation – narratives that were once relied upon to frame a coherent story of the university, now appear to be limited by their inability to describe the philosophical, sociological and material vicissitudes of what is now a corporate, performative and flexible

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_______________________________________________________________ university – a University of Excellence to draw on Bill Readings’ phrase. The contemporary university now appears to be a place in which different kinds of knowledge are being produced. Further, the university is now so proliferated by an abundance of competing knowledges while simultaneously being a university that is implicated in the production of multiple knowledges, purposes and frameworks for understanding itself, that the story it tells to and of itself appears to be inconsistent. Barnett suggests that the university must now learn to embrace the capacities embodied in the constellation of fragility as core narratives. These include notions of uncertainty as an ontological disposition; unpredictability as a lack of confidence or insecurity; challengeability where “the assumptions on which we have depended, but of which we were hardly aware, are – in the same moment – both revealed and found to be inadequate”6; and contestability as a state in which explanatory frameworks rival for attention. The academic development project represents that form of learning and reflection which is intended to support academics to survive and perhaps prosper, in this changed and uncertain environment. While in some universities the academic development project includes support for research, the specific dimension of our work we focus on in this paper is university teaching and learning. Specifically, we examine academic development’s emergence as a discursive site and set of knowledge practices that promise to deliver a new kind of university teacher. University teaching and learning is a field of study now complete with its own nomenclature and set of thematics. It is constituted through the usual symbols and artefacts of research and scholarship – professional bodies, peer reviewed journals and conferences that indicate the formation of a community of practice. Across Australia, NZ and the UK, there are award degree programs on offer that contain a special higher education designation to signal its distinction from ‘education’ proper. And like many disciplines, there is talk of a default canon. That canon - anchored in traditions of effective student learning – tends to frame the discourse of the scholarly university teacher. In Australia (and the UK), that canon is born from a long tradition of phenomenographic research relating to students’ approaches to study together, with their conceptions of learning.7 This is a body of work that enacts a particular view of teaching, learning and its appropriate development while systematically and cogently organising how the field and its practices appear. It makes available and desirable a certain sort of ‘teacherly’ self and to refuse the moral necessity of that discourse is to be cast as an unscholarly teacher: one uninterested in developing an evidence-based rationale for teaching and learning; one who eschews the wealth of research about student learning together with its improvements and one who refuses to participate productively in institutional teaching and learning change.

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_______________________________________________________________ Academic development, therefore, relies on academics assuming responsibility for improving the quality of student learning through working on themselves as teachers as well as the systems and contexts designed to support teaching. It is a responsibility made troublesome and problematic precisely because of the contradictory drivers which are the hallmark of the neo-liberal agenda, and that universities now have to wrestle with. In a climate that sees university teaching and learning increasingly dominated by the performative and calculable logics of audit, excellence and quality, academics themselves are faced with a set of difficult questions. In what ways are they to read and engage with the notion of responsibility inside the uncertainty of this terrain? What choices are to be made about the conduct of a teacherly self? What assumptions about students and their learning are academics required to invest in? What new modes of institutional participation then become desirable? Responses to these questions are difficult and part the work of the academic development project is to set in motion, a set of conversations to this end. This being so, it is often perceived as a project aimed at domestication rather than critique as Ray Land puts it. But in the flurry to develop the teacher academic, these conversations present opportunities for renewal. Renewal, however, signals work and the outcome of the academic development project is to “show up the inadequacies of what is currently being done while demonstrating with some urgency, what still needs doing”.8 Put differently by Erica McWilliam: “it is simply that because development is always predicated on the idea that someone is knowledgeable while someone else is knowledge deficient, such communication cannot be a conversation among equals. The developer’s knowledge is already assumed to be what leads to progress, not the knowledge of the developee”.9 This fundamental imbalance can result in forms of resistance. As academic developers, we are interested in how such acts might be read and engaged with productively rather than dismissed too easily as evidence of unscholarly teacher behaviour. We also want to invite critical reflection about the framing of the academic development project itself and the requirements it makes of us to be ethically responsive and at the same time, cultivate and encourage responsibility in a way that retains the spirit and commitment to academic collegiality. 3.

Characterising Resistance in/to Academic Development The romantic illusion, however, remains: resistance is a good thing, a way to give subjects back their agency, a way to give them voices operating against the hegemony of dominant discourses and practices, and a way to move beyond the stasis and determinism implied by paradigms of cultural production.10

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_______________________________________________________________ Diane Hoffman’s work reminds us of the complexity in which ‘resistance’ operates across social life. We are careful too, to recognise a point by Michael Brown: “[i]f there is any hegemony today, it is the theoretical hegemony of resistance”.11 Hoffman and Brown (both anthropologists) invite us to remain wary about what it is we might claim as resistance within the academic development project. The focus on both our own, and our colleagues’ performances of resistance, is about a lack of specific attention to matters of power – particularly our work in shaping anew academics’ identities as teachers. In a moral economy where teaching excellence is a disposition to which all academics are encouraged to aspire, to not desire or seek improvement can mean that academics are at risk of being left behind in their roles as teachers. And as a particular cohort of experts, being left behind is anathema to the very idea of the academic subject as one who ‘knows’. The extent in which the academic development project contributes to, makes possible or achieves the conditions of that ontological state is significant and requires ongoing deliberation.12 With Lila Abu-Lughod, the formation of resistance we want to work with here is to position it as diagnostic of power, as a demonstration of forms of power and how people are caught up in them. So we seek neither to romanticise resistance nor to ignore it. We do however want to speculate on the ways in which narratives of resistance reveal academic development work as a project that organises, disorganises and reorganises relations of power. This essentially Foucauldian reading of power is put in the following way by Abu-Lughod: … power is something that works not just negatively, by denying, restricting, prohibiting, or repressing, but also positively, by producing forms of pleasure, systems of knowledge, goods, and discourses.13 In our field and scholarship of practice, it might be said that the colleagues we work with quite often resist our offerings. This resistance is part of the academic lot. We deal frequently with the emotional freight of loss, desire and misrecognition. The contours of those specific forms of resistance are listed below. In our experience, these are also strategies that rely on a combination of refusal and sabotage. x Non-attendance at workshops and other teaching and learning activities x Criticising other academic colleagues seeking to change teaching and learning practices in their department or school x Attempts to disrupt educational development sessions through constant arguing over minor or tangential matters

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_______________________________________________________________ x Refusal to participate in activities within sessions x Being disgruntled because educational development is being used as part of a performance management strategy to require some more senior academic staff to work on their teaching x Strong desire for a check-list approach to teaching and learning (tips and tricks) x Critiquing interactive, discursive or narrative based activities and approaches as not ‘evidence-based’ (preferences for statistics presented in a transmission, stand and deliver mode) x Critiquing elements of the student learning educational development canon x Critiquing generic approaches to teaching and learning principles x Critiquing educational development as under-theorised x Critiquing educational development as part of a neo-liberal, managerialist agenda x Critiquing educational developers’ expertise There are several ways to read and engage with the reasons behind these behaviours. Sue Clegg suggests that new ideas about university teaching and learning can “disturb older understandings of the academic role in which scholarship and teaching were seen as united practices based on discipline”.14 She describes how the shift in focus away from teaching to student learning can make artificial and inauthentic the separation between continuing professional development opportunities for teaching and learning, and for research. This is sometimes a fear – a sense that focusing on student learning rather than teaching amounts to the destabilisation of disciplinary identity. The professionalisation of pedagogy is often imported from elsewhere, divorced from the knowledge contexts of its production. This is highly problematic when, as Tony Becher and Paul Trowler’s work on academic tribes and territories consistently illustrates, the strength and significance of academics’ personal investment in and primary attachment is to their discipline. That universities also organise themselves in this way can make cross-disciplinary fertilisation difficult although not impossible. The rush to ongoing teaching and learning development can also provoke an identity crisis for those who see themselves primarily as researchers rather than teachers. On this account, teaching and research become completely different tasks requiring a different knowledge and skill set altogether. Or, teaching is a craft, a tacit practice that is got through with minimal fuss and fanfare typified in teacher-focused conceptions of teaching. According to Michael Prosser and Keith Trigwell, this is a view of teaching where the aim is information-transmission; in other words, the primary focus of the teacher’s awareness is on their own performance and their capacity to

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_______________________________________________________________ transmit content knowledge to the student. The shift to a student-focused view of teaching requires what Lee Shulman refers to as pedagogical content knowledge. In developing a more complex and sophisticated view of teaching, it is now the student’s understanding that becomes the focus of a teacher’s awareness. This requires an interest in matters to do with curriculum design and assessment – educational knowledge - because it is those structures which often mediate the opportunities for students’ engagement with the material. And if an academic’s loyalty is to the pursuit of disciplinary research, this new educational knowledge can sometimes be unwanted, or else, prove disorienting.15 In some cases, being associated with teaching or being seen to be good at teaching may be evidence enough that the person is a ‘failed researcher’. Resistance behaviours are sometimes then, a consequence of the way academics (and universities) give value to teaching. Does the time spent improving one’s teaching practice lead to promotion, reward or an enhanced scholarly reputation? Does it mean time away from research? What is the value of the scholarship of teaching and learning? These questions have been brought into sharper focus with the research quality exercises in the UK, NZ and now due soon in Australia. As Mark Israel forecasts in the Australian context, academics regarded as weaker researchers are likely to be given “higher teaching loads irrespective of their teaching ability”, while those perceived as stronger researchers, especially those in “research intensive environments, may find themselves pulled out of teaching, even if they are also inspiration teachers”. In describing lessons from the UK experience, Ian McNay suggests that there may be a perception that teaching success translates less easily to strengthening the collective reputation of a university. So, ongoing efforts to bring research and teaching closer together through new ideas about research-led teaching, research-led learning and teaching-led research are likely to be further compromised by such research quality exercises. Despite all attempts, the overall effect of these exercises seems mostly to devalue and undermine the efforts at improving teaching and learning. A number of academics also appear to be uncomfortable with the under-theorised nature of what Roger Lindsay has called educational developmentology. Resistance behaviours are often experienced as a frustration with educational research and its allied terminology. The canon, or ‘key mantras’ of teaching and learning development – those such as reflective practice or action research can often make little sense to academics schooled in other disciplinary methodologies, such that demonstrations of resistance can be read as experiences of identity dissonance. That sense of ‘ill-fit’ can be because the work of improvement must lay claim to a scholarly basis (educational research) but it is as a body of work derived from elsewhere. Instead of improvement, it can have the opposite effect and thereby

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_______________________________________________________________ diminishing the potential for change. In some cases, the canon is reproduced without any acknowledgement of substantial critiques emerging from a variety of disciplinary literatures. That academics have their own, local understandings of pedagogy can sometimes escape those of us who lead teaching and learning development. The translation of these conversations into practice can and often does, occur inside the normal routine of academic work: internal and external examining, committee activity, validation and course development work as well as conference networking. That lack of recognition by developers, together with an insistence that development happen centrally (under our wisdom, guidance and with the institutional imprimatur we represent) can be another explanation for enactments of resistance. It is for these reasons that we sound a note of caution as we go about our work in academic development. It is a caution born from what Angela Brew describes as fundamental to the work of academic development project – its Janus-face. This level of reflexivity contains both danger and possibility. While we are both committed to the improvement of teaching, learning and pedagogy in universities and re-imagining a purpose for higher education through that focus, the stories we encounter along the way – stories of ambivalence, ambiguity and resistance – are important narratives to not only fold into our practice but to research and write about. So the practice of, and commitment to responsibility we argue for here is one that encourages and invites the public articulation of these counternarratives. It means sharing in each others’ concerns about the project of academic development and bringing its legacy, its assumptions and underlying victory narratives into dialogue with those ideas that challenge it. In this way, academic development has the productive possibility of becoming a healthy space of translation and contestation about teaching and learning that can, as Stephen Rowland challenges us to do, “keep disciplines alive, develop interdisciplinarities which are challenging and critical and [can] enhance the intellectual rigour of research and the integrity of teaching” in academic development.16 Rowland goes on to argue that these possibilities open up only when the scholarship of academic development can hold its own as a rigorous field of critical interdisciplinary inquiry. 4.

The Project of Responsibility for Academic Development: Two Assumptions How might academic development be a responsible project? What are its obligations to be a responsible project? What is entailed in that sense of responsibility and how are we to learn it? Are we schooled enough in the conceptual frameworks that give rise to a complex account of responsibility and responsibilisation? In learning and taking up that sense of responsibility, how does it change our practices? What if that responsibility leads to the

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_______________________________________________________________ undoing of our very existence as a community of practitioners and scholars? Who will care for teaching and learning in the university if we don’t? Will we have done enough to encourage academics to care of their own volition? These are not trivial questions. They are ideas that circulate around us as we go about our work and they are matters that trouble us deeply as academic developers interested in the scholarship, identity and politics of academic development. Part of our responsibility as academic developers must be to understand and make public the assumptions that underpin the discursive operations of the project in which we are involved. There are two we want to turn to in particular. Our first attempt at fashioning a responsible project is to see the development knowledge we offer inside a logic of performativity - a logic which brings both sanction and reward for particular kinds of teacherly performances.17 Seen in this light, development knowledge promises to make academics over into the kind of teachers concerned with student learning, their own learning and institutional learning. The focus on learning brings reward and recognition, and in the project of lifelong learning being able to read and prosper inside this new condition means that development comes to be seen as necessary, good, constant and inevitable. The moral focus on learning guarantees that no academic will want to be left behind. The unpredictability of change means that academics can never fully know it all, and never know enough and that in spite of the security of their reputation as experts, opting out of teaching excellence might mean being left behind. New knowledge is required precisely because of the unpredictability of these changes. It is also a means of control, ensuring that neo-liberal academic workers are always unfinished, always in the process of being made, unmade and (re)made. And as change-agents within our institutions, as advocates for teaching and learning, academics developers will often appear masterful as workers who can see and detect change coming from a mile away. A second assumption that runs throughout the academic development project is that academics are unable to develop themselves as teachers. On their own, they lack a scholarly basis in education that can provide them with the mechanisms upon which to make convincing arguments about their work as teachers. As teaching and learning development initiatives and activities fall under a new regime of regulation, the work of teaching and teachers is subject to a new kind of observation or surveillance, a different sort of gaze – where one has an eye on oneself, that same eye on colleagues, and then is subject to a range of other, external eyes – each level requiring support and management. These micro-systems of control and monitoring assume that academics left to their own devices will neglect their teaching responsibilities and any commitment to its betterment. They may become idle in their teaching responsibilities, or worse, become neglectful of their students. Propriety and scholarly professionalism demand

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_______________________________________________________________ climate, a moral panic can quickly be created about risky, unscholarly teachers. Universities (and individual faculties and departments) will differ in their approach to dealing with these risks but it is folly for the academic development community to ignore its role in both shaping and responding to academics’ anxieties about their responsibilities as scholarly teachers. 5.

Final Remarks: Between Resistance and Responsibility We are not seeking to abandon hope for the scholarship of academic development project. We realise that there are a good many academics that find our efforts useful and with regularity, go on to transcend the ideas we offer them about teaching and learning. Their challenges to us are about our learning as much as it is about development knowledge itself. Louise Morley’s work shows us that the institutional efforts to develop teaching and learning have delivered certain kinds of benefits and visibility for women academics especially. We want to be involved in a project, a set of processes and a practice that is fully aware of itself, its assumptions and the contradictory effects of a unitary narrative about its work. We do not want to see ourselves primarily as holders or dispensers of knowledge, or the uncritical advocates of a university teaching in ways that holds others to ransom. However, we appear to be in a field which requires our colleagues to desire this development knowledge for themselves, even as changes to the idea of the University take hold in ways that have been argued are detrimental to the production of knowledge and scholarship.20 If academic development must be a project that deals in both resistance and responsibility, then it must welcome and foster debate about both. It must continue to produce narratives about its work which acknowledge that difficulty, dissonance and disarray are key parts of any process of renewal. As practitioners, we must write these narratives as part of our professional responsibility so that it is germane to the story of academic development. These stories work to facilitate alternative ways of engaging with our disciplinary-based colleagues and can broaden our repertoire of pedagogical strategies and practices. Further, they may empower our disciplinary-based academic colleagues because they disrupt the power dynamics inherent in academic development, enabling greater opportunity to influence the types of teaching and learning regimes that serve as the focus for academic development activities. A practice and scholarship which recognises the urgent need for a more explicit dialogue around challenges of these kinds, is we think, in all our favours. As we see it, the key issue is in how this form of dialogue can be a matter of regular communal discourse for academic developers everywhere.

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_______________________________________________________________ that this development focuses on student learning. So, without the academic development project, teaching in universities is in danger of an inward and private teacher-focus, a practice that is uncritical and one that has a scant basis in research or evidence. Any of the local conversations taking place about teaching and learning then become rearticulated so that they are in alignment with institutional discourses of good practice. With these assumptions in play, the resistance narratives and behaviours we have encountered are not surprising. Understanding the dynamics of refusing knowledge as Alice Pitt argues can “disrupt learners’ prior self-understandings but instead of producing feelings of empowerment, these disruptions are experienced as producing new and …debilitating forms of helplessness and isolation”.18 Even when academic developers attempt to co-negotiate learning environments designed to empower our academic colleagues to make decisions about their teaching practice, the effect may be a reproduction of inequities. Our own desires for recognition can obscure the very message our colleagues hear: “you are pushing a particular ideology or philosophy of teaching and learning and I don’t agree with it”. Our acts of intended generosity are sometimes offered in recognition that there is an inbuilt un-evenness in the academic development project. They are given over with an assumption that it is an imbalance that can be worked through; that differences can be ironed out or at least momentarily reconciled and sometimes with an expectation that a similar level of generosity ought to be returned. There is still the register of shock, disbelief and disappointment when our colleagues misrecognise us. If that form of recognition provokes uncomfortable self-knowledge, then the process of refashioning will take on a range of contradictory meanings. Also implicit in the logic of the academic development project is that there are university teachers who are not up to the task of teaching, especially where they fail to teach well and then remark on the quality of the student. Since improvements in the experience and outcomes of student learning are always the end point or impact measure of academic development, the university teacher whose efforts are located elsewhere can sometimes be brought to account. In our experience, this happens differently across universities with different levels of intervention. In some cases, explanations are sought, the issues chewed over, opportunities are identified, mentoring may be forthcoming, committees set up so that time is given to the proper work of identification, remediation and repair. These teachers are risky rather than being the risk-conscious individuals desired by neo-liberal organisations and as a result, become objects inside institutional risk management strategies. As Terry Evans and others have argued, while these strategies are depicted as “rational managerial practices, they are produced by social, political and economic conditions that value particular risks being assessed … and others ignored”.19 In the current teaching and learning

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Notes 1. D Hayes, ‘Taking the Hemlock? The New Sophistry of Teacher Training in Higher Education’ in The McDonaldization of Higher Education, D. Hayes and R. Wynyard (eds), Bergin & Garvey, Westport, 2002, p.144. 2. For a wonderful summary of the general nature of these critiques, we suggest: G Webb, ‘On pretexts for higher education development activities’. Higher Education, vol 24, 1992, pp. 351-361. 3. The idea of virtuous necessity is taken from an article by: B Davies & E Bendix Petersen, ‘Neo-liberal discourse in the Academy: The forestalling of (collective) resistance’. Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences, vol 2 no. 2, p.78, but the original idea appears to stem from work in social welfare. 4. The idea itself has served to refocus the teaching and learning efforts of universities in ways that are focused on the perceptions and experiences of students. The other way it is being used is often to ask the corollary: are we teaching if students are not learning? See P Ramsden, Learning to Teach in Higher Education. RoutledgeFalmer, NY, 2003, p.5 for a rationale for this shift. 5. Our article draws on the following Ron Barnett publication, ‘Learning for an unknown future’. Higher Education Research and Development, vol 23, 3, 2004 p.249, although his book Realizing the University in an age of supercomplexity, SRHE & Open University Press, Buckingham & Philadelphia, 2000, is probably the most comprehensive source of his writing to do with supercomplexity. 6. ibid., p.251. 7. Ference Marton’s body of work is often cited as the starting point for student learning research in higher education. See F Marton, ‘Phenomenography - Describing Conceptions of the World Around Us’. Instructional Science, 10, 1981, pp. 177-200. 8. T Peseta, Learning and Becoming in Academic Development: an autoethnographic inquiry. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 2005, p. 94. 9. E McWilliam, ‘Against Professional Development’. Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol 34 no.3, August 2002, p.190. This article has generated a good deal of interest amongst academic developers interested in developing more critical accounts of their work. 10. D Hoffman, ‘Turning power inside out: reflections on resistance from the (anthropological) field’. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol 12 no.6, November 1999, p.675. 11. MF Brown, ‘On Resisting Resistance’. American Anthropologist, vol 98, no.4, December 1996, p.729.

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_______________________________________________________________ 12. This issue of identity and power as a logic inherent to the academic development is explored in detail by the Challenging Academic Development Collective in a Special Issue of The International Journal for Academic Development, vol 12 no.1, 2007. 13. L Abu-Lughod, ‘The Romance of Resistance: Power through Bedouin Women’. American Ethnologist, vol 17 no.1, February 1990, pp.41-55. 14. S Clegg, ‘Problematising Ourselves: Continuing Professional Development in Higher Education’. The International Journal for Academic Development, vol 8, no.s 1-2, May 2003, p. 40. 15. T Peseta, A Brew, K McShane and S Barrie, ‘Encouraging the scholarship of learning and teaching in an institutional context’ in Transforming a University: the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Practice, A. Brew & J. Sachs (eds), Sydney University Press, Sydney, pp. 223-231 16. S Rowland, ‘Overcoming fragmentation in professional life: the challenge for academic development’. Higher Education Quarterly, vol 56 no. 1, 2002 pp. 52-64. 17. S Ball, ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’. Journal of Education Policy, vol 18 no.2, March 2003, p. 215-228. 18. A Pitt, ‘Qualifying resistance: some comments on methodological dilemmas’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol 11 no.4, October 1998, p.539. 19. T Evans, A Lawson, E McWilliam & P Taylor, ‘Understanding the management of doctoral studies in Australia as risk management’. Studies in Research, vol 1, 2005, p5. 20. In the context of Australian universities, Bronwyn Davies’ work demonstrates this view. See in particular: ‘The (Im)possibility of Intellectual Work in Neoliberal Regimes’. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, vol 26 no. 1, 2005, pp.1-14 and ‘Winning the Hearts and Minds of Academics in the Service of Neoliberalism’. Dialogue, vol 24 no 1, 2005, pp. 26-37.

Bibliography Abu-Lughod, L., ‘The Romance of Resistance: Power through Bedouin Women’. American Ethnologist, vol 17 no.1, 1990, pp.41-55. Ball, S., ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’. Journal of Education Policy, vol 18 no.2, 2003, pp. 215-228. Barnett, R., ‘Learning for an Unknown Future’. Higher Education Research and Development, vol 23 no. 3, 2004, pp. 247-260.

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_______________________________________________________________ Becher, T., and Trowler, P. Academic tribes and territories: intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines, Open Uni Press, Philadelphia, 2001. Brew, A., ‘The Future of Research and Scholarship in Academic Development’, in H. Eggins and R. Macdonald (eds), The Scholarship of Academic Development, SRHE & Open University Press, Buckingham & Philadelphia, 2003, pp.165-181. Brown, MF., ‘On Resisting Resistance’, American Anthropologist, vol 989 vol. 4, December 1996, pp.729-735. Clegg, S., ‘Problematising Ourselves: Continuing Professional Development in Higher Education’. The International Journal for Academic Development, vol 8, no.s 1-2, May 2003, pp.37-50. Evans, T., A. Lawson, E. McWilliam & P. Taylor, ‘Understanding the management of doctoral studies in Australia as risk management’. Studies in Research, vol 1, 2005, pp. 1-11. Hayes, D., ‘Taking the Hemlock? The New Sophistry of Teacher Training in Higher Education’ in D. Hayes and R. Wynyard (eds), The McDonaldization of Higher Education, Bergin & Garvey, Westport, 2002, p.143-158. Hoffman, D., ‘Turning power inside out: reflections on resistance from the (anthropological) field’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol 12 no.6, November 1999, p.671-687. Israel, M. ‘Teaching loses out as RQF focuses on research’, Australian Financial Review, 20 Feb. 2006, p.30. Knight, P., and S. Wilcox, ‘Effectiveness and ethics in educational development: changing contexts, changing notions’, International Journal for Academic Development, vol 3 no.2, November 1998, pp. 97-106. Land, R., ‘Agency, context and change in academic development’, International Journal for Academic Development, vol 6 no.1, May 2001, pp. 4-20. Lindsay, R., ‘Book Reviews: Teaching for quality learning at university (Biggs, 2nd, 2003); Learning to teach in higher education (Ramsden, 2nd, 2003)’. Studies in Higher Education, vol 29 no.2, April 2004, pp. 279-286. Manathunga, C., ‘Doing educational development ambivalently: applying post-colonial metaphors to educational development?’ International Journal for Academic Development, vol 11 no.1, May 2006, pp. 19-29. McNay, I.., The Impact of the 1992 RAE on Institutional and Individual Behaviour in English Higher Education: the evidence from a research project, Bristol: HEFCE, 1996, http://www.hefce.ac.uk/HEFCE/1997/m6_97.htm.

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_______________________________________________________________ McWilliam, E., ‘Against Professional Development’. Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol 34 no.3, August 2002, pp. 189-199. Morley, L., ‘Opportunity or exploitation? Women and quality assurance in higher education’. Gender and Education, vol 17 no.4, 2005, p.411429. Peseta, T., Learning and Becoming in Academic Development: an autoethnographic inquiry, Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 2005. Pitt, A., ‘Qualifying resistance: some comments on methodological dilemmas’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol 11 no.4, October 1998, p.535-553. Prosser, M., & Trigwell, K. ‘Understanding learning and teaching: the experience in higher education’. SRHE & Open Uni Press, Buckingham, UK, 1999. Ramsden, P., Learning to Teach in Higher Education. RoutledgeFalmer, NY, 2003. Readings, B. The University in Ruins. Harvard University Press, MA & London, 1996. Rowland, S., ‘Academic development: a practical or theoretical business?’ In H. Eggins & R. Macdonald, R (eds) The scholarship of academic development. SRHE & Open University Press, Buckingham, 2003, pp. 13-22. Shulman, L., ‘Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching’. Educational Researcher, vol 15, no.2, 1986, pp.4-14.

The Internet, the Knowledge Product, & the Craft of History Ian Morley The role of higher education as a vehicle for the transmission of knowledge shifts not only in concurrence with political philosophies but also with the changing nature of students and society at large. A significant factor acting upon students, and accordingly also teachers, has been the evolution of the internet as an instrument to access learned information. While from a student perspective the growth of online technologies has proved liberating in terms of availability of information beyond the limits of library opening hours and orchestrated dances in the classroom, it has from a teachers perspective lead to the unleashing of new schooling dynamics and pressures. In this regard, given the growth of the internet as a student research tool, a number of matters of concern has arisen from the lecturers’ perspective. On the one hand, lecturers wish to support their students and encourage learning beyond classroom parameters, yet, on the other, internet use has eroded former extensively accepted practices concerning the obtaining and elucidation of detailed knowledge. In such a context this paper offers an analysis of the internet conduct of undergraduate History students at a university in Hong Kong. Describing the challenges within an institution that encourages its academics to embrace E-learning/E-teaching, this paper highlights how the internet was included within a historiography course so as to promote students’ problem-solving capabilities and augment the decision-making processes involved in learning the historian’s crafts. Considering this backdrop, the paper shall explain classroom issues including balancing content-centred versus problem-centred approaches, and the utilisation of a scaffolding learning approach so that students better control their internet use, better understand their inquiry processes, and have greater power over deep knowledge acquisition. Keywords: Teaching, scaffold learning, higher education, internet, historian’s craft, andragogy, classroom. 1.

Background A fundamental component of studying History is an appreciation of Historiography and the generic subject-related aptitudes known as ‘the historian’s craft’. What this precisely entails varies from place to place yet covers numerous broad bases understood to be vital to comprehending the subject of History. Put simply, courses covering ‘the historian’s craft’ are crucial elements within a History curriculum in directing students towards

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_______________________________________________________________ both knowledge and understanding of their discipline in both a theoretical and practical sense. In this paper such a course, ‘History and the Historian’, taught within the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), is explained. While it is not necessary to describe here in detail what Historiography is, or precisely what ‘the historian’s craft’ is said to be, it is imperative to note that any History syllabus, be it in the secondary or higher education system, relies on two generic aspects.1 The first centres on teaching students how to come to grips with the past so as to better understand it. The second, for the benefit of teachers as well as students, hinges on not teaching about the past by merely bombarding students with a cluster of arbitrary, unsystematic facts. Furthermore, in order to make the rationale of teaching History comprehensible certain basic teaching aspirations and objectives must be met.2 For example, firstly and somewhat obviously, for any student to wrestle successfully with the basic components of any subject it must be taught well. In this respect, History, just like other academic subjects, relies on excellent teaching standards3 and on an understanding by instructors of what ‘good’ History teaching is. It is commonplace to find History teachers adhering to a lucid self-manufactured teaching philosophy that drives their teaching preparation and practice processes. even though. As a matter of routine these individually made philosophies generally touch upon four fundamental actions in learning and ‘doing’ History: identify; analyse; respond; display.4 The teaching of History, like that of many other university subjects, principally focuses on two classroom situations5: the lecture and the tutorial. As significant as the tutorial is to the imparting of historical knowledge, the true crux of the instruction of History is the lecture, even though this all too frequently equates to little more than a teacher standing in front of a student audience explaining sequential facts about the past. Nonetheless the role and intrinsic value of the lecture should not be ignored, nor underestimated. Lectures, in short, provide Historians, as instructors of past events and people, with opportunities to reveal up-to-date research, to construct and present a line of reasoning, to put facts into a historically significant order, and at the very same time allow often large numbers of students to hear at firsthand about the knowledge and experiences of practitioners of the discipline, and to hear their lecturers address matters beyond the technique. Utilising primary source materials where necessary, yet also developing and discussing questions of historical meaning, the lecture is thus fundamental to the process of conveying History within higher education and when done properly it is a highly effectual channel to promote effective learning.6 The lecture thus can stimulate student understanding, enhance analytical aptitude7 and supplement students’ imagination8 of what past times were like.

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The Historian’s Craft An imperative element of any History curriculum, as mentioned in the previous section, are courses focusing on Historiography, History’s schools of thought, traditions, insights and perceptions, plus practices, e.g. thinking, writing, researching, and speaking9. In a nutshell, such courses, universally acknowledged as putting forward ‘the historian’s craft’10, are usually offered immediately upon undertaking any enrolment in a History degree programme, be it at undergraduate or postgraduate level. As much as anything else they reveal why History and the past matter in the context of the local school’s ethos, as well as the community more generally. To achieve this understanding lectures are routinely grounded on two basic academic principles: discovery and construction.11 With their prescriptive nature these modules project the importance of the past, its relevance - and profundity, too - through encouragement of the learning of History and the striving towards imposed educational goals. But, on the other hand, more general concepts such as, for example, those that relate to matters of citizenship, or social and moral development, can also be explored, in so doing offering students the chance to have a deeper and more logical understanding of their society and/or the wider world in its present day form. In practice, though Historiography courses may also be employed to demonstrate to first-year undergraduate students that History is a series of discourses, that History does not exist in terms of the past but only in light of what is written of the past, and that fiction and fact are two independent entities. To highlight this particular point about how someone can create and use a past the author of this paper in week one of his Historiography course, as noted later, employs three films (Zulu, Gladiator and From Hell) to question, in the context of the films, the need for a ‘past’, and to show how the subjects of the film only exist (to differing degrees) in the films’ comprehension of ‘History’. To come to the original point: historiography courses, particularly at an introductory level in higher education, are opportunities to consider in a controlled, didactic manner the wider questions that concern all historical writing and thinking: matters of evidence, argument, causation and effect. In other words, these courses discuss, explain and offer opportunities to get closely acquainted with the purpose, questions and heritage of History. Moreover such craft-based courses provide outlets for grasping the mechanics and notions of historical research that Historians themselves, thanks to their own prior-studies and subsequent research experiences, take for granted. These include knowing how to pick a subject to research, finding research materials, organizing information, accumulating and bringing together information and documenting sources. Evidently wider contexts have an impact on the architecture of History research; in particular, the rise of modern technologies,12 plus the growth of materials accessible

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_______________________________________________________________ through using the World Wide Web (WWW), and knowledge of e-sources all these take on great value. In historian’s craft-type teaching modules certain scholastic elements are universally designed into the syllabus. These typically include classes dedicated to comprehending what exactly History represents, and providing additional time to commence some applied History, and so put historical skills into practice in the form of basic research. With reference again to the aforementioned provision of classes dedicated to historical skills practice, lessons are also offered within historian’s craft syllabi with regards to what may be labelled the practicalities of History.13 To summarise, this means making students aware of the skills regularly employed in the process of executing historical studies, and getting them to practice such skills by, for instance, critically reviewing a paper from a scholarly journal or a chapter from a book,14 analysing an historical document, or giving an oral presentation. The broad aim of these endeavours is to allow students to grasp and develop a basic insight, and foster a set of competences necessary to succeed in the more advanced courses that take place in subsequent years of study. 3.

Hong Kong: Education, Commoditisation, Contests, Technology A major aspect of Hong Kong’s character is its commodity culture and the economically driven nature of society. This commoditisation process has such a wide social and cultural impact that it has touches upon many aspects of local society, including education. Its influence has therefore been enormous, and has led, in effect, to a way of life where everything has its economic price, value and shelf life. Upon any visit to Hong Kong one cannot fail to be surprised, maybe even disturbed, by the ramifications of this attitude. Such an outlook is not only prevalent in business but in people’s behaviour, for example, when they use local transport: an empty seat becomes viewed as something that must be taken, i.e. used, before it disappears, that is before it is grabbed by someone else, so frequently attempts to get a seat on a bus become acts of challenge. In this milieu other parts of Hong Kong’s society, like educational standards and valuable knowledge, also get viewed as something to be contested, a commodity - as will be shown shortly - that can be bought into by children’s educational grades, and attendance at respectable educational establishments. In any consumer-based society certain society-wide characteristics are evident. Goodwin15 notes three key traits: the inherent symbolism of the commodity; the associated behaviours of producers and consumers; attitudes towards commodities. While the slant of this paper is not to describe in detail factors pertaining to the production of commodities or culture, certain issues

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_______________________________________________________________ relating to Goodwin’s paper three consumer features that are visible within Hong Kong society must nonetheless be touched upon. Within Hong Kong society education is viewed in warm terms, and is understood to be a viable means to participate in Hong Kong’s intense employment sector, a means to obtain wellbeing; at the same time it is also a moral device to allow for the production of ‘good individuals’. Consequently from an early age children in Hong Kong realise the importance of schooling, a process enforced not just through the actions of Hong Kong Government and the school syllabi, but moreover through the actions and attitudes of the students’ parents, in particular their coaching of their children in the value of managing one’s school life, and the concept of the ‘Hong Kong lifestyle’,16 the basis of a local sense of identity. Thus for Hong Kongers to have a feeling of identity, their behaviour, their habits and their consumer patterns are crucial. In terms of education this consumer sovereignty manifests itself through one’s children deeding to attend the ‘right’ schools, to have a private tutor, achieve good grades, pass exams and ultimately attend the best universities. This pathway is universally understood both by children and their parents to be the foundation to establishing success which is measurable in Hong Kong terms by attaining the ‘best’ jobs, i.e. the well-paid positions, which allow for the provision of the ‘good life’, and considerable financial security. Increasingly significant in recent years to Hong Kong’s socioeducational conduit has been the application of technology in the classroom. Technology has played a vital and often underestimated role in Hong Kong culture, for its application has been promoted by the government from the 1990s as a means, along with improved management and the accumulation of information capital, of raising labour productivity, of bringing societal betterment, and negating certain local and wider world issues like the ‘braindrain’ of the late-1980s and early-1990s, the effects of globalisation, the rise of China’s economy, and the growth of business within places such as Shanghai. In this way the role of technology and function of education in Hong Kong society have both – and together - taken on unprecedented significance. In accord with such social evolution of Hong Kong society the application of technology in the school classroom has established new generation of arrivals into the local higher education system – a generation familiar with computer technology due to its having been integrated into the secondary school curricula from the 1990s, and via their computer use at home. As a result today’s incoming undergraduate university students are not only highly efficient with word processing, or for instance PowerPoint usage, but are likewise accustomed to the employment of the internet as a basic research tool. Moreover, given students’ computer know-how and confidence with technology, they almost as a right expect their instructors to have a

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_______________________________________________________________ similar level of aptitude, which in classroom terms equates to a more than moderate degree of expertise with computers, an ability to make interesting visual files for lectures, etc., and assignments being designed to involve some form of computerisation. In fact such is the attitude of students towards technology that the author of this paper through interviews with his students found that instructors noticed by students as being technologically incompetent were perceived as producing less stimulating courses. In such cases the functional value of the product being consumed, i.e. the educational course in question, is considered as being of poor quality. 4.

History and the Historian, and a Historian In August 2006 the author of this paper began full-time employment at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s (CUHK) Department of History and was informed of the need to teach the first year undergraduate course, ‘History and the Historian’, a module that acts as an introduction to Historiography and to the skills deemed important to undertaking the study of History17. With this in mind the author therefore asked of himself common curriculum design question18: “What is the purpose of the curriculum?”, “What subject matter is to be used?”, “What learning experiences are to be provided?” and “How are the results to be assessed?” Important to answering these questions, and so the process of curriculum design as whole, were skills and knowledge-based assumptions made by the author about the students, e.g. whether they have a rudimentary comprehension of historical theory, and whether they are familiar with retrieving information from the WWW. In the Hong Kong context as described above, certain assumptions could be made: the students already had basic computer skills, and basic experience of using computers for investigative purposes. Given these suppositions, the curriculum design process leant towards a mutual constructivist and scaffold learning approach so as to facilitate the students’ ability to build on prior knowledge, no matter how rudimentary it may be, and to absorb concurrently new information, in order to prepare them for subsequent advanced study in their degree programme. Such an approach would allow the students to fasten together their secondary school experiences to the preliminary higher education course in order to build a basic frame of reference regarding History as a defined academic discipline, and to allow opportunities to further develop basic skills and techniques regarded as valuable for pursuing historical studies. As is widely acknowledged about a scaffold approach to learning, the role of the teacher is vital. In this regards emphasis was shifted away from the lecture scenario in ‘History and the Historian’ so that it would act only as a vehicle to introduce relevant ideas, theories, etc., and instead onto the tutorial, the teaching/learning crux of the module. In this regards the tutorials would serve two convenient purposes. Firstly, they would act as an

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_______________________________________________________________ opportunity to clarify issues raised by the lectures and to work through any important points of note in more detail. Secondly, the tutorial would be a time during which students would ‘do History’ under the guidance of the instructor so that they could better come to terms with knowing what History was, and, importantly, become aware of their own learning processes as History students. Hence it may be said, as noted prior, that a constructivist philosophy was adopted. Purposefully, in order to provide adequate time and assistance to the students, the normal CUHK composition of tutorials (four in total, each 90 minutes in duration) was altered to eight tutorials, each 45 minutes in length. With the additional tutorials established it was anticipated that a better rhythm to the module would result. This it was hoped would provide additional learning potential giving greater opportunities for academic participation, and embed learning experiences each week - as opposed to more widespread tutorial session of the old model. Although much could be said about the workings of ‘History and the Historian’ programme, given publishing limits a detailed analysis would be impractical, and perhaps of no significant value. Nonetheless in order to provide a synopsis of the author’s teaching attitude and brief account of elearning, scaffold learning, and ultimately student autonomy, attention shall be given to discussing one of the two student course assignments, an undertaking in problem-based learning. 5. Course Assignment: Supportive Independence and Web Pedagogy In weeks 5 and 6 of ‘History and the Historian’ lectures were given on ‘Problems and History’ and ‘Newspapers and History’ – the focal points of this instructive subset being questions like “What kinds of problems do historians face? What kinds of problems of historical knowledge are there? Is historical writing a reliable view of the past? How can bias be ‘seen’?” A number of handouts were given to the students during these lectures to assist them in grasping the nature of basic historical analysis, the ascertaining of an historian’s self-critique of materials (date, authorship, localisation, integrity, credibility, etc.), and methods of content evaluation (anachronisms of language, references, consistency with the cultural setting, identification of errors, trustworthiness). Handouts that were given to students made reference to two fictionalised historical events: the Jack the Ripper murders in London, and the sinking of the Titanic. In order to build upon the initial learning experiences generated in lectures of weeks 5 and 6 students were asked to partake in an historical review exercise which would form the second formal course assignment. The purpose of this task was to not only grant students an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to identify problems in using source materials but in addition to contextualise History within a prescribed intellectual framework,

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_______________________________________________________________ and to use the internet as the sole conduit for primary source research – the WWW being utilized due to a lack of relevant primary sources in the CUHK Central Library, and, moreover because of the rising importance of the internet as a research tool in the study of History. In this light students would be challenged to hone their investigative and internet-use skills, while concurrently going through the analytical and evaluative process highlighted in the lectures. Consequently students were given the following information in the tutorial of week 7 as to what exactly their assignment would be: “‘Weaknesses in Practice When Using Newspapers as Historical Evidence: The Example of….’” The example subjects being Jack the Ripper or the Titanic’s sinking. Dispensed in week 7 students were given one month to complete assignment 2. Time was purposefully set aside in tutorials to help students prepare for the assignment with, for instance, week 8’s tutorial being dedicated to outlining the social context at the time of Jack the Ripper and the Titanic’s sinking. The tutorial, with its small-group discussions, helped students appreciate the late-1800s debate about the difficulties in governing London, and the city’s social problems, as well as the perceived invincibility of The Titanic by the Edwardians prior to its maiden journey. The class-wide debate at the end of the tutorial was propped up by a one-page teacher’s handout outlining prominent contextual issues that could affect the perspective of the newspapers reporting. For week 9, with the concise teacher’s handout from week 8 in mind, students were asked to undertake another small-group discussion, so as to build upon the previous week’s debates, and to further raise conjectural points of possible significance when analysing their newspaper sources source materials were assigned by the teacher and students were barred from using supplementary websites. In this way by preparing for week 9’s class/debate, and so learning in isolation, and then through undertaking small-group interaction in the classroom (week 9’s tutorial), the students could continue to learn about problems of using newspapers as historical evidence, albeit through social interaction in the milieu of the tutorial activities and questions proposed by the teacher. The students were thus expected to develop their capabilities through internalizing concepts based on their own interpretation of sources listed on the internet, and then via activities that occur in a social setting of the classroom. Moreover, in accord with the scaffold perspective, the author himself, in the role of instructor, just like the students themselves, was involved in the research. Students were guided and supported through all the learning activities. Thus the students became gradually aware of indispensable analytical skills, evaluative methods and the need to establish a more efficient and effective use of the internet, particularly since its successful use is reliant upon critical thinking skills so as to find the best sources, given the plethora of sub-

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_______________________________________________________________ standard historical data placed on the WWW. The learners developed or constructed new understandings by elaborating on their prior knowledge and skills through the support provided by their teacher, through their own independent work, and also by utilising the thoughts and knowledge of their most capable peers within their small group situations. Concurrently, as learners not only individualize the assignment in their own way and in their own time through using the internet in a controlled manner, each student becomes conscious for maybe the first time of the strong points (and drawbacks) of being reliant upon the internet as a research tool. The learning process is therefore not only conceptual or practical, but experiential. It keeps the students active, alert and driven to a collective yet democratic goal; in so doing it pushes them towards processes of deep learning and so to intrinsic self-motivation. In this way interest, enjoyment and curiosity, aside from skill building, are shown to be valuable in themselves and not just pathways to cognitive ends – the means to measure output, or in the wider context of Hong Kong, a means to measure the value of the commodity of education. As has been mentioned earlier, buttressed learning activities are crucial to the success of scaffold learning undertakings, and the engagement of students with prescribed activities. Taking into account that Asian students at secondary school are generally learning passively and have little control over facilitating their own learning inside the classroom, university education provides new learning challenges that initially bewilder many 18 and 19 year old newcomers. However this situation can easily be counteracted through introductory courses such as ‘History and the Historian’ adopting instructional alternatives that deviate from the norm so that the learners are immediately engaged, build on past knowledge, and unite it with new information presented by their lecturers. Alongside, the technological context can be embraced to help engage students, and whether traditionalists agree with it or not, it is a fact of life that web pedagogy is a growing aspects of History’s, and so the historians, existence. With growth in the use of elearning and decreasing use of books or journals, tasks like the one described here grant valuable opportunities to ensure students’ internet habits are both efficient and effective. The scaffolded assignments helped students learn how better to conduct their internet research and become aware of the limitations of their prior internet research activities. Additionally the students came to value the internet as a means to complement traditional bookwork, still the bastion of historical student research, and not see the WWW as the means to answer any academic question posed to them by their instructors. The linking of new educational experiences with those of the individuals’ past, e.g. through computer and internet usage, additionally was found to provide new means of academic stimulation. In a field History, where an upward proficiency (knowledge and skills like investigating, analyzing, discussing, problem

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_______________________________________________________________ solving) plus understanding (issues and principles) of themes has a profound and enduring value and versatility, the newfound resourcefulness of the students generated positive attitudes towards continued learning and the selfmanagement of scholarship for individuals who previously were not so inclined. As students confirmed, the programme provided an opportunity to discuss ideas and concepts, to practice them more openly than was possible in other more tightly organised courses, and to carry them forward. 6.

Conclusion A précis of the cultural and educational situation in Hong Kong has been given with reference to first year undergraduates studying historical theory in connection with the use of technology within a curriculum. From conversations with students the author was able to conclude that modern technology was expected almost as a right within syllabi, and its use by both teachers and students was deemed appropriate to learning. However, significantly, it seemed that students had little formal awareness of how the use of, for example, the internet could directly assist their academic development. The assignment described in this paper was not only a response by the author to find ways to integrate the use of computer technologies into classroom, but it also addressed issues of learning outcomes. Additionally the assignment was an opportunity to enhance what students have previously done, and will be expected to do in the future with regards to computer use. As the assignment demonstrated, different interrelated categories of general learning outcomes can be discerned. These include developing knowledge and skills, better understanding the nature and impact of technology, addressing processes such as composing, organising, and manipulating information within an assigned framework, i.e. the assignment to be completed. In the approach to teaching discussed in this work an authentic task was produced, one meaningful for students in light of their existing knowledge, abilities, needs, wants, anticipated future learning goals and cultural views. It is worth mentioning at this point, although side-stepping somewhat, the psychological dynamics produced within the university department through curriculum designing and technological evolution. To illustrate this point a few broader matters must first be mentioned with regard to the use of the internet. For instance, limitations of the library opening and closing hours are removed as the internet is accessible at any time of the day or night, but on the other hand well-rooted and unquestionable academic traditions for obtaining and elucidating knowledge are in danger of being eroded by ‘new’ student behaviour. Thus the use of the book for knowledge gain is replaced in the minds of many students and teachers by the use of the computer and the internet, thus endangering the overall quality of learning. The crux therefore for academics is how to harness the unleashing of this

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_______________________________________________________________ intellectual behavioural dynamic, how to engage students in discovery learning so that they may reach a greater understanding of their subject, and how to ensure students still ‘deep read’ source materials. In this situation a complicating factor is the students’ perception of courses. .A constituent of any department is its folklore, usually centred on concepts of time, the severity of the workload and reputation of the instructor. A positive reputation encourages future students to take the course while a negative reputation pushes students away unless it is compulsory course and then classroom motivation problems can arise. In such a milieu it is imperative that assignments are carefully managed and maybe even are offered with some subtle form of gloss that accordingly allows a positive public image of the assignment and course to be generated. To sum up, all learners in the context of ‘History and the Historian’ are active agents empowered as the module unfolds to take decisions regarding what they view History to be and to construct their own pathway to learn about it. Autonomy thus becomes an active exercise of each student’s responsibility as a learner of History. As shown, the constructivist slant of the module builds on certain assumptions made by the teacher in terms of skills and prior knowledge. The students are accepted as having their own opinions the encouragement of which motivates them to interact and engage with their peers in teaching and learning relationships in order to cross-fertilise ideas and develop conceptual understanding – an unrivalled chance for intellectual stimulation, growth, and investigation. This has massive implications for students of History which, with its holistic nature, encompasses and straddles across a great number of other disciplines. Finally, by allowing the pursuit of knowledge to have a personal value, and not just a competitive one in society’s cultural commodity race, epistemic curiosity is formed. In turn intrinsic motivation is generated, allowing the learners to recognise problems when they arise, in turn solving them and making greater sense of their understanding through the accumulation of their own experiences.

Notes 1. J Arthur & R Phillips, Issues in Teaching History, Routledge, London, 2000. 2. RI Nicolson, Designing Effective University Courses: Theory and Practice. Sheffield University, Sheffield, 1997, and A Nicholls & HS Nicholls, Developing a Curriculum: A Practical Guide, Allen & Unwin, London, 1972. 3. J Fines, Teaching History. Holmes McDougall, Edinburgh, 1983. 4. KC Barton & LS Levstik, Teaching History for the Common Good, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2004.

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_______________________________________________________________ 5. S Healy, Ideas for Teaching History, B.T. Batsford, London, 1974. 6. PN Stearns, Knowing, Teaching & Learning History, New York University Press, New York, 2000, p. 97. 7. ibid., p. 98. 8. HWR Hawes, Teaching History, Peninsula Press, Hong Kong, 1961, p. 9. 9. T Scott, ‘The Historian’s Craft’, Perspectives, Taylor & Francis, 2002. 10. R Cunningham, ‘Teaching Pupils How History Works’, Teaching History, Emporia, 2001. 11. J Nichol, Teaching History: A Teaching Skills Workbook, MacMillan Education, London, 1984. 12. A McMichael, ‘The Historian, the Internet, and the Web: A Reassessment’, Perspectives , Taylor & Francis, 1998. 13. A Booth & P Hyland, History in Higher Education: New Directions in Teaching and Learning, Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Oxford, 1996. 14. B Mazlish, ‘The Art of Reviewing’, Perspectives, Emporia, 2001. 15. NR Goodwin, ‘Overview Essay’ in N Goodwin, F Ackerman & D Kiron, The Consumer Society, Washington D.C., Island Press, 1997. 16. E Vickers, In Search of an Identity: The Politics of History as a School Subject in Hong Kong, 1960s-2002, Routledge, London, 2003. 17. RC Williams, ‘Teaching the Theory and Practice of History’, Perspectives, Emporia, 2002. 18. RM Gagné, The Conditions of Learning, Rineheart & Wilson, New York, 1967, p. 23.

Bibliography Arthur, J., & Phillips, R., Issues in Teaching History. Routledge, London, 2000. Barton, K.C., & Levstik, L.S., Teaching History for the Common Good. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2004. Booth, A., &Hyland, P., History in Higher Education: New Directions in Teaching and Learning. Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Oxford, 1996. Cunningham, R., ‘Teaching Pupils How History Works’. Teaching History, no. 102, February 2001. Fines, J., Teaching History. Holmes McDougall, Edinburgh, 1983. Gagné, R.M., The Conditions of Learning. Rineheart & Wilson, New York, 1967. Goodwin, N., Ackerman, F., & Kiron, D., The Consumer Society. Washington D.C., Island Press, 1997. Hawes, H.W.R., Teaching History. Peninsula Press, Hong Kong, 1961. Healy, S., Ideas for Teaching History. B.T. Batsford, London, 1974.

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_______________________________________________________________ Mazlish, B., ‘The Art of Reviewing’. Perspectives, vol. 39, February 2001. McMichael, A., ‘The Historian, the Internet, and the Web: A Reassessment’. Perspectives, vol. 36, February 1998. Nichol, J., Teaching History: A Teaching Skills Workbook. MacMillan Education, London, 1984. Nicholls, A., & Nicholls, H.S., Developing a Curriculum: A Practical Guide. Allen & Unwin, London, 1972. Nicolson, R.I., Designing Effective University Courses: Theory and Practice. Sheffield University, Sheffield, 1997. Scott, T., ‘The Historian’s Craft’. Perspectives, vol. 40, September 2002. Stearns, P.N., Knowing, Teaching & Learning History. New York University Press, New York, 2000. Vickers, E., In Search of an Identity: The Politics of History as a School Subject in Hong Kong, 1960s-2002. Routledge, London, 2003. Williams, R.C., ‘Teaching the Theory and Practice of History’. Perspectives, vol. 40, September 2002.

“Most Intellectuals Will Only Half Listen”: The Needs and Futures of Hip-Hop Studies1 Graham Chia-Hui Preston That’s the Joint!: the Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2004) defines the canon of vital scholarship on hip-hop culture and it also functions as a key and easily available textbook for the teaching of the subject in higher education. Importantly, the text signifies a clear point where hip-hop studies consciously separates itself from larger disciplines and fields such as African American studies, musicology, or cultural studies. This paper argues that the book has two main problems - the complete lack of content concerning the influence of the internet on hip-hop culture, and the absence of emphasis on the transnational reach of hip-hop which is manifested in local scenes around the world and popular interest in American rap. In combination with the methods detailed in That’s the Joint!, hip-hop should be understood, discussed and taught as a transnational subculture that is now heavily reliant upon, and influenced by, the new literacies associated with the internet, as well as influenced by its interactions with global flows of sounds, politics and culture. Employing theory from new media studies and techniques from cultural and literary studies such as textual analysis, this paper will examine That’s the Joint! before turning to previous scholarship on hip-hop from writers such as Tricia Rose, Tony Mitchell, Ian Maxwell and Ian Condry in concert with brief close readings from hip-hop culture itself. In conclusion, the paper turns towards a theoretical articulation of the needs and futures of hip-hop studies in the context of the broader context of the humanities and their ongoing conversations. Key Words: Hip-hop studies, transnationalism, new media, globalization, canon. 1.

Hip-Hop’s Problematics of Language, Decadence and Style During the unedited version of the late 2006 hit song “Hip-Hop is Dead,” influential rapper Nas reflects on his influence on youth. He tells us that, “Whenever, if ever, I roll up, it’s sown up / Any ghetto will tell ya Nas helped grow us up.” 2 Despite or perhaps because of his (at least perceived) influence, he wonders about the sustained and often vehement criticisms that hip-hop has endured since its earliest days. He answers his question when he raps, “‘Cause we love to talk on what ass we gettin’ / Most intellectuals will only half listen.”3 Interestingly, instead of taking issue with this intellectual neglect, Nas seems to accept the rationale when he notes, “So you can’t blame jazz musicians / Or David Stern with his N.B.A. fashion issues.” But,

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______________________________________________________________ when one reads the lines more closely, Nas is not excusing the statement but instead pointing towards deficiencies of knowledge and understanding that these figures, whether intellectuals or professional sports officials or jazz musicians, expose when they speak about hip-hop. Nas theorizes that the subculture’s overt positioning of sexuality, corporeality and its sexism are the main reasons why academics have only “half listen[ed]” to hip-hop. Nas’s answer is ultimately unsatisfying in its simplicity when one fully considers the stakes of knowledge in studies of this contemporary global youth and outwardly racialized subculture. That is, sex cannot be the only reason why some people “only half listen”, but Nas’ examples of David Stern and jazz musicians are instructive in defining the risks when intellectuals start to fully listen, learn and finally teach hip-hop. Nas’s reference to jazz musicians is probably an allusion to the famous contemporary and conservative jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis who has continually rallied against rap for much of his career. For example, in 2005, he told the Independent that rappers tell people to: take your drawers off you, they show your ass, they sell bullshit, they call themselves ‘niggaz’ and the women ‘bitches’ and ‘hos’ and it’s fine with everybody. That what the essence of decadence is.4 Marsalis claims that it is a sort of materialistic and perhaps moral ‘decadence’ that offends him above all. But his examples are actually a denunciation of hip-hop’s uses of language, which brand men as ‘niggaz’, women as ‘hos’, and everything as a commodity (‘they sell bullshit’) to be placed in the market. In a sense, Marsalis objects to hip-hop because the thrust of its uses of language is similar to, and interfaces well with, commercial - if not corporate - interests in order, in the most basic sense, to make profits. At the beginning of the 2005-2006 season, David Stern, the National Basketball Association commissioner, who Nas notes has ‘fashion issues’, implemented a new dress code for the league’s players which “requires [them] to wear ‘business casual’ attire whenever they are engaged in team or league business.”5 The policy was attacked by players such as Allan Iverson who claimed that it was “targeting my generation - the hip-hop generation.”6 Stern dismissed the criticisms and instead opined that: [h]ip-hop is a style, but some of my owners like Jay-Z, Nelly and Usher are hip-hop, but they dress in a different fashion […] Hip-hop doesn’t mean sloppy.7

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______________________________________________________________ Stern thus sees his dress code as not attacking hip-hop culture per se but merely correcting parts of it in order to change its perceived sloppiness to a sort of corporate yet hip-hop influenced style of neatness.8 Stern’s critique is explicitly fashion based; he objects to the look, the style and the stance of hip-hop as practiced by the game’s players and approvingly points towards the ‘different fashion’ of owners such as Jay-Z who is, as Stern declares, still very much hip-hop but just not ‘sloppy’. It has been noted that the dress code seems to be a function of Stern’s desire to maintain, if not further, the game’s appeal to its primarily older, middle class and corporate base of financial support which had started to turn away from the game and its players.9 Hiphop, in a sense, is a liability in the selling of the game to the majority of its paying customers. In other words, it functions as an unknown, a threat and a detriment to corporate agendas. Hip-hop is of course a commodity (as Marsalis stresses) and a culture industry in and of itself, but Stern thinks that it cannot be sold in its present form to those who drive the revenues of the league. The dress code re-commodifies the NBA and its players by focusing upon one side of hip-hop culture. I have opened with this brief discussion because I think that it exposes many of the same issues - rap’s language, sexism and politics - that arise when you take hip-hop into academe. The publication of a hip-hop studies reader by a the major academic publishing firms in the world, Routledge, is one of the most important moments in the academic study of hip-hop and, furthermore, it marks a point where one can critically examine how the field has approached its subject. That is, That’s the Joint!: the HipHop Studies Reader could be seen as a project analogous to Stern’s dress code in that it packages, re-brands and legitimizes hip-hop for an academic or mainstream audience.10 The text also importantly situates itself as a neat and contained node into which one can map out the broad guidelines of what hiphop studies might be, what political or cultural positions it consciously engages with and, importantly, what the field elides whether on purpose or though omission. Additionally, if one thinks of the text as a node, it also works well as a point of departure from which to explore, consider and interrogate other works in the field. Many of these other works – particularly work on American hip-hop – are excerpted within the pages of the textbook. Hip-hop’s decadence, language and style all present obstacles to the formation of an academic, intellectual yet accessible form such as a textbook. As the editors of the collection negotiate these impediments, they are framing if not explicitly forming a kind of canon of the vital scholarship and historical journalism on which hip-hop studies, as a new and unique field of study, can consciously separate itself from larger and related disciplines such as African American studies, musicology or cultural studies. The book’s primary problematics though are its near complete lack of material on the function of new media such as the internet on the increasingly transnational practice of

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______________________________________________________________ hip-hop and, most importantly, the global nature itself of rap. Whether it be in the appreciation of the music or in the production of original music and art from communities around the world, the book ignores how hip-hop stands in as a determinant of black identity and a pervasive influence on the racial conceptions of its subcultural participants and artists. One of the major questions that goes unanswered in the book is: how does hip-hop effect the construction of identity (whether cultural, racial or national) of people who may not fit with preconceived notions of hip-hop? The assertion that we are “only half listen[ing]” can thus speak to the biases many hip-hop scholars have against rap from outside the United States. “Half listen[ing]” would then be a spatial metaphor about a discipline’s inward focus on a select few artists and scenes based upon geography, race and nation. It could also apply not only to the selective highlighting of hip-hop’s vulgarity, sexism and outwardly mindless adherence to capitalist structures of power but also to the lack of attention to its technological core and protocols as practiced by many of the subculture’s adherents around the world. 2.

Establishing the Canon: That’s the Joint! That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader was published by Routledge on September 16th, 2004. The text consists of 44 essays by writers such as Paul Gilroy, Dick Hebdige, Nelson George, Tricia Rose, David Toop, Michael Eric Dyson and Mark Anthony Neal, among many others, with a foreword by Dyson, an introduction by Murray Forman and editorial notes from Forman and Neal. Divided into 7 parts, the book explores hip-hop’s history, culture and the corresponding authenticity debates, geography, approaches to gender, politics, “technologies of production” and its place in relation to “culture industries.”11 At well over 600 pages, there is undoubtedly a lot to discuss within its pages but, for the purposes of this essay, I will focus (adapting a term from Gérard Genette) on the paratextual material in co-editor Murray Forman’s introduction, Forman and Neal’s editorial comments and a parts of Dyson’s foreword, since these are the sections which explicitly discuss the larger project of the book in relation to the place and space (localized within firmly American settings) of knowledge production and dissemination. Specifically, the most intriguing elements of their project are the editors’ ideas about a hip-hop studies canon, the field’s potential as a separate subject and the editors’ ideas and idealizations of the rap community (of scholars and subcultural participants). The very act of editing the first major textbook in a subject - the strategic inclusion and exclusion of articles - such as That’s the Joint! points towards a creation of a hierarchy of knowledge and, perhaps, the delineation of a canon for an emerging field. However, Forman holds that an “outcome of hip-hop’s academic study is the formation of what might be termed a ‘hiphop canon’”12, insisting that it is the study itself and not the textbook that

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______________________________________________________________ leads to a canon. Forman sees canon development to be tied to the fact that “several key texts [are] becoming enshrined in various forms, not least of which includes course syllabi and academic reading lists.”13 In the end, Forman boisterously endorses the statement “bring the canons” (a play on a Public Enemy song entitled “Bring the Noise”) because “a hip-hop research canon isolates attention on the academic literature that attempts to explain, define, theorize, and culturally locate hip-hop in relation to myriad factors.”14 The canon concentrates and filters the best material from an interdisciplinary and possibly diffuse body of scholarship. At the very least That’s the Joint! is the site where this canon of research is actualized; the canon is collected and packaged for academics, the general public and, importantly, the classroom. This view is not necessarily controversial as, indeed, there must be standards into what gets collected in a reader and, in turn, what is taught. Effective, widely read and influential essays derived from an accepted canon of research are the foundation to any high-quality anthology. But, one should consider that canons are more than just a series of texts. Literary critic and cultural conservative Harold Bloom argues that: [t]he Canon, once we view it as the relation of an individual reader to what has been preserved out of what has been written, and forget the canon as a list of books for required study, will be seen as identical with the literary Art of Memory.15 While Bloom is speaking specifically on the western canon of literature, I believe his words also have meaning for academic canons of research such as the one that is developed in That’s the Joint! That is, canons are in fact a sort of archive of memory in a field that collates more than just texts, including perhaps perceptions of both ethical and professional standards. To his credit, Forman alludes to this when he tells us that “[canon formation] is a productive enterprise: it produces a sense of history and evolution and it also produces values.”16 Thus, his own explicit formation of a canon for hip-hop studies defines a history of hip-hop culture, the evolution of how hip-hop has been studied in academic circles and the shared principles of those who study and practice it. Canons (archives of knowledge and memory) have values but it should be noted that they also have value, in both the financial and theoretical sense. That is, canons carry cultural and real capital which can manifest in, for example, the funding and publication of books such as That’s the Joint! In any case, one of the major results of the formation of a canon of hip-hop research is the potential for hip-hop studies to become a unique subject, divorced from subjects such as African American studies, musicology, or cultural studies. In the anthology’s introduction, Forman tells

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______________________________________________________________ us that: [w]ith That’s the Joint, [the editors] assert that research and writing, whether in journalistic or academic contests, is absolutely part of the wider hip-hop culture. Analyzing, theorizing, and writing about hip-hop are also forms of cultural labour and should accordingly be regarded as facets of hip-hop.17 Importantly, I think that for Forman the reverse - hip-hop as part of academic culture - is also true and it is the value of canonicity which makes this inversion possible. I am not saying here that the academy cannot study and teach something exterior to it (which is patently false) but that, without a canon, a new, rising field cannot fully emerge. With the canon in place and underlined by That’s the Joint!, it is now possible to see the beginnings of an independent field called hip-hop studies.18 At this point, I would like to step back and think through the hidden valences of the notion of the values that emerge through the construction of a canon of hip-hop research. Values in themselves suggest principles or possibly even ethics; certainly the previously outlined 7 parts of the book can read as a kind of answer to the criticisms of rap made by David Stern and Wynton Marsalis that opened this paper. The sections on gender and politics contain material on the culture through which Marsalis and Stern could be educated. That’s the Joint! lays out an ethics of hip-hop studies, a pattern of shared values that is backed up by the weight of its commitment to knowledge production and dissemination, thus providing a justification of the genre and a challenge for its critics. An underlying and important reverberation of values is the idea of community, which is where the primary problematic of That’s the Joint! arises. After all, in ideal circumstances, a community is formed and held together by shared values. The values here would apply to both scholars (the denizens of the field) and also the people who are being studied. Forman notes that the book “ideally inhabits [the] liminal zone where the ‘hood and the university converge”.19 The ‘hood’ consists of “the students enrolled in advanced seminars in ‘the school of hard knocks’” while the university is of course peopled by scholars.20 Forman then cites Benedict Anderson’s highly influential work on ‘imagined communities’ in relation to the “hip-hop nation.”21 The problem here is that there is much more to hip-hop than just these two spheres and the majority of the ‘hip-hop nation’ or, more accurately, hip-hop nations, are perhaps as divorced from the ’hood’ as they are from the academy. In the book’s foreword, Michael Eric Dyson argues that hip-hop is a viable subject “for no other reason than […] the culture has grabbed global attention and sparked emulation in countless different

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______________________________________________________________ countries and among widely varied ethnicities.”22 What Dyson does not say here is that the ways that hip-hop has recently been transmitted to places with no connection to the mythical ‘hood’ are through technologies such as the internet in the form of popular blogs (e.g. nahright.com or soul-sides.com), websites such as allhiphop.com or daveyd.com, file sharing protocols like bit torrent or programs like Soulseek and LimeWire, not to mention the rise of legal sources for mp3s such as iTunes. In other words, there are technological processes that drive the imaginings of the hip-hop community. Aside from a brief reference to a search of university syllabi in the introduction, That’s the Joint! does not address the internet. The section on technologies, for example, is focused on the musical production (sampling, primarily) of the culture and “the appropriation and reassignment of music technologies, especially the turntable, mixer and vinyl record.”23 In the end, the topic of the reception of the culture by people outside the subculture’s metropole is unfortunately almost avoided altogether as if there were no ‘hip-hop nation’ outside of the ‘hood’ and the university. It is perhaps the drive for canonicity, and its definition of acceptable knowledge and accompanying values, that excludes these topics from the reader since the canon’s project is invested in articulating the value and values of hip-hop culture at the expense of those who may interact with, (re)configure, learn from and teach in the subculture through employing the new literacies associated with new media.24 3. One Nation or Many Nations?: Globalization and Hip-Hop Studies I would like to turn here towards other works in hip-hop studies that inform this point of view and, in doing so, discuss another (and perhaps more important) problematic in the text – the dearth of material on global hip-hops [sic] – which is tied up with Forman’s conception of the hip-hop nation, as discussed above. That’s the Joint! does provide a couple articles on hip-hop from outside the United States in Andy Bennett’s comparative study of hiphop in Frankfurt and Newcastle, “Hip-Hop am Main, Rappin’ on the Tyne,” and Juan Flores’ “Puerto Rocks,” which works its way through the cultural resonances of hip-hop’s spread into Puerto Rico.25 These essays are important and useful contributions to the field but, in That’s the Joint!, they are overshadowed by Forman’s conception of the larger project of hip-hop studies. Simply put, the community or even (sub)culture of hip-hop is conceived in the terminology of the ‘hood’ which is, in turn, a formation that is undermined by racial undercurrents. That is, when Forman refers to the ‘hood’ as the centre of the production of hip-hop culture, he is also alluding to the central and dominant position of African American involvement in hiphop. One can trace this racial determination back to some of the earliest

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______________________________________________________________ and still most important work on hip-hop. In Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), one of the first academic surveys of hip-hop culture and the source of one essay on gender and rap in That’s the Joint!, Tricia Rose declares that “[r]ap music is a black cultural expression that prioritizes black voices from the margins of urban America.”26 Furthermore: “[r]ap’s stories continue to articulate the shifting terms of black marginality in contemporary American culture.”27 Rose thus conceives of hip-hop as a purely African American art form that works with and against the histories of victimization of African American populations in the United States. Black Noise’s major problem, then, is its inflexible and dichotomous approach to race in hip-hop. For Rose, rap is very much a black noise. She dismisses white artists like the Beastie Boys (who have gone onto produce a body of work that rivals any African American rap artist) as only a sign of rap’s success with white teenagers. In comparison with “white forms of expression” like heavy metal, Rose also categorically comments that “rap fans are the youngest representatives of a black presence whose cultural difference is perceived as an internal threat to America’ cultural development.”28 This severe reading of race in hip-hop conveniently ignores Hispanics who have been essential members of the earliest hip-hop scenes of the late 1970s, as well as other races such as Asian Americans. In the case of the latter, Rose describes the 1992 Los Angeles riots as mainly “attacks on whites” when in actual fact, as traced by David Palumbo-Liu in Asian/America, the attacks (of African Americans and Hispanic Americans) were primarily directed at the Korean-American-owned grocery stores in South Central Los Angeles.29 The main point here is that hip-hop’s racial dynamics are not as simple as black-versus-white but instead bear the complex markers of modern multicultural society. This limited and dichotomous approach to race and hip-hop is not just limited to Black Noise, or the historical moment - 1994 - of its publication. In “Getting Real about Global Hip-Hop” (2002), Yvonne Bynoe, the President of Urban Think Tank, Inc. which is the organization that publishes the first hip-hop studies journal Doula, attempts to think through the global phenomena of hip-hop. However, the article turns towards an almost polemic and certainly disciplinary tone when discussing (or claiming) the ownership and history of the culture. Bynoe notes: unless one has at least a working knowledge of Black Americans and their collective history, one cannot understand Hip Hop culture. While rap music has been globalized, Hip Hop culture has not been and cannot be. Anyone can be taught the technical aspects of deejaying, breakdancing, writing graffiti, and rhyming, or can mimic

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______________________________________________________________ artists’ dress or swagger, but the central part of Hip Hop culture is the storytelling and the information that it imparts about a specific group of people.30 Bynoe’s assertion rests on a few important points. First, she divides “rap music” from “Hip Hop culture.” Rap would refer to the “technical aspects” of the various artistic and stylistic practices but hip-hop alludes to much more, including an entire history and cultural context of African Americans in general. Secondly, she restricts anyone who is not African American access to hip-hop itself since it “has not been and cannot be” globalized. In other words, she limits the true knowledge of hip-hop to people who have an understanding of and identify with the specific history of one race in one nation. The categorical nature of this statement is striking, especially considering the role of non-Black actors in various stages of hip-hop’s history. For example, DJ Charlie Chase (a pioneering DJ) is Hispanic, legendary producers Arthur Baker and Rick Rubin are white and important artists like Eminem and the Beastie Boys are also white. Pushing Bynoe’s thought even further, we may well conclude that hip-hop knowledge is not just limited to African Americans but to black people from New York, the birthplace of the subculture, and not including any of the number of vigorous and innovative scenes around the United States - not to speak of worldwide attempts to bring together local contexts and traditions with American hiphop traditions, technologies and techniques. For Bynoe, the globalization of hip-hop is a one way process that emanates from the United States to inflict a sort of (sub)cultural imperialism upon young people around the world. As she comments, “[r]ather than allowing youth around the world to create their own cultural identities, the United States has exported its own for their use.”31 Hip-hop then is exported and consumed as an (African American) whole that cannot be altered or understood in any different way. According to Bynoe, hip-hop can only ever be submitted to a dominant reading.32 Furthermore: [w]hen one rationally examines ‘Hip Hop’ around the world, one is actually analyzing the various ways that American rap music has been adapted to other languages and cultures […] international interpretations of ‘Hip Hop’ […] are based on ill-informed nations about the United States in general, and about Black Americans in particular.33 In other words, an alternate hip-hop nation, whatever its individual context, cannot emerge since it would be, by Bynoe’s definition, a product of cultural imperialism. It would be an unmodified copy of the ‘original’. There are, of

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______________________________________________________________ course, a number of critiques here, not the least of which is the inflexibility in Bynoe’s conception of global hip-hop. American hip-hop itself is not a music that has developed exclusively out of American music forms but instead is an assemblage of reggae from Jamaica, electro-futurism from Germany and American disco and funk practices (with their own global influences).34 Contemporary hip-hop is also in conversation with global trends, sounds and cultures such as in the examples of the Wu-Tang Clan’s engagement with Asian American culture or Timbaland’s use of Indian music in his production. In other words, the transnational flows from which hiphop itself emerged run both ways; it is never just a single homogenous African American entity. 4.

Considering the Global: Transnational Hip-Hop Studies Despite its near exclusion from That’s the Joint!, there has been some academic work on global hip-hop. One of the most prominent examples is Tony Mitchell’s Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA, a collection of essays on hip-hop practices throughout the world. With a title that clearly points to Tricia Rose, the text stands as one of the most comprehensive collections of work on global hip-hops. In stark contrast to examples previously discussed, Mitchell believes in the existence and vitality of many hip-hop nations. In his introduction, he tells us that “[h]ip-hop and rap cannot be viewed simply as an expression of African American culture; it has become a vehicle for global youth affiliations and a tool for reworking local identity all over the world.”35 However, Mitchell’s use of the vehicle metaphor is notable in that, when properly unpacked, it reveals itself as implicitly indebted to the same one-way approach to globalization in hip-hop to which Bynoe, Rose and Forman explicitly subscribe. That is, there is little sense in Mitchell that global and transnational trends can work the other way and affect African American culture. Global hip-hoppers may drive the car and make modifications based on their own context, but, in the end, they cannot produce the car itself. Yet Mitchell sees global hip-hop to stand in opposition to American hip-hop, both in terms of its stylistics and critical quality, and he notes, “[f]or a sense of innovation, surprise, and musical substance in hip-hop culture and rap music, it is becoming increasingly necessary to look outside the USA.”36 American hip-hop is thus without substance, stagnant and ultimately dull; the turn towards global hip-hop in hip-hop studies would then be motivated by an ennui with so called mainstream hip-hop. Arguably, putting the two categories of hip-hop in opposition is not the most productive and rigorous tract to pursue as it reinforces a point of view that is dependent on models of subcultural imperialism. Rather, one should look to the later discussion in Mitchell’s essay where he traces a trajectory from “an adoption to an adaptation of U.S. musical forms and idioms. This has involved an increasing

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______________________________________________________________ syncretism and incorporation of local linguistic and musical features.”37 The point here is that critical value judgments are not to be employed as a justification for research; instead, it is necessary to instead interrogate the cultural and racial resonances involved in the participation of hip-hip by groups outside the metropole. Ian Condry’s Hip-Hop Japan is a text that attempts to place hip-hop within, to use a phrase from the book’s subtitle, “the paths of cultural globalization” through a thorough examination of the Japanese hip-hop nation. One of the most interesting aspects of Condry’s book is his attempt to map “a new cultural politics of affiliation” between Japanese rappers and American hip-hop, which draws upon the work of Cornel West. Condry defines this politics as “the gestures toward alliances across racial boundaries [which] demand analysis in terms of their multiple frames of reference.”38 In other words, Condry seeks to think through the political dimensions of hiphop based “affiliation” between Japanese artists and their American counterparts and, further to that, this analysis needs to be grounded within the specific cultural, political and social context of Japan. Before accepting Condry’s project fully, one should consider his use of “affiliation” which could suggest a temporary and perhaps casual relationship that can easily break down. Nonetheless, Condry’s account is convincing and influential for its efforts to situate Japan’s hip-hop scene within the global and transnational streams of information, music and subcultural capital in contrast to, say, Ian Maxwell’s Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes which explains Sydney’s hip-hop scene through an unnecessarily complex and dense theoretical framework.39 5.

The Needs and Futures of Hip-Hop Studies To conclude, I think that conversations about the needs and possible futures of hip-hop studies in academia are sorely needed. My paper has not been arguing for the tearing down of the hip-hop canon that is laid out in That’s the Joint! Instead, the present discussion has elucidated the point that, in relation to hip hop studies, canons are more than a series of texts and that they carry value as well as values that are not necessarily benign. This general argument has been made in the (literary) canon debates put forth from post-colonial, feminist and queer points of view, but it also needs to be carried into the delineation of a new field such as hip-hop studies. In any case, what I think is needed in the actual teaching of hip-hop studies is a balance between the ‘hood’ (the producers of the subculture), the university (the intellectuals that need to listen fully) and the people around the world who are caught between these poles (the receivers and new architects of the subculture) – all of whom carry backgrounds and connections with historical, sociological and cultural contexts as evidenced in hip-hop’s musical heritage in funk, reggae, jazz and the blues. One of the concerns of global hip-hop studies should be the dialogic nature of transnational hip-hop and the

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______________________________________________________________ conversations that flow from the centre to the periphery, as well as the cultural, racial and social valences of this continuing trend. The technological connectors (internet, television and to a lesser extent cinema) between these poles cannot be detached from the ‘hood’ or the university. Hip-hop studies then is not merely a convergence between two poles, as the editors suggest, but a study of a dynamic system and network. In other words, what I am suggesting here is that hip-hop should be studied, to draw upon Stuart Hall, from both sides of the global encoding-decoding circuit.40 Finally, this discussion spills over into fundamental questions about the larger project of the humanities in the 21st century. I am influenced by Alan Liu’s suggestion that humanities scholars are now knowledge workers (in the Information Technology sense of the phrase) alongside office workers and management. Liu calls for humanities work to use business strategies allegorically, deploying their tactics for our ends “to imagine a society of knowledge that overlaps with […] current postindustrial capitalism.”41 Liu compares the “declared knowledge-work skills” of business and the humanities, suggesting that the humanities should buttress our skills of close reading, writing, and interpretation with business methods like search, select, scan, download, and import, among many other approaches.42 What is intriguing here is that hip-hop interfaces much better with corporate language than that of the humanities. Hip-hop samples, cuts, pastes, inserts, filters and configures sources and objects as diverse as vinyl records, turntables and subway cars (in graffiti art), much more than it, say, close reads. This is not to say that close reading cannot have utility in hip-hop studies - far from it, as my deployment of the technique in this paper would hopefully suggest - but that traditional scholarly methods need to be tempered with other ‘knowledge-work skills’. In the end, such an approach translates into hip-hop studies with a greater emphasis on the cultural impact of wider systems of capital and power that envelop the hip-hop nation(s). Both Marsalis (“they sell bullshit”) and Stern - whose criticisms that opened this paper - implicitly acknowledge hip-hop’s dialectic relationship with business. This relationship can also be explicit, for example in the song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix),” and especially in Jay-Z raps, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man” - a line that Michael Eric Dyson finds to be an “[articulation of] a political aesthetic of entrepreneurship.”43 The line is also, I think, an allusion to the idea of (the) business of postindustrial capitalism. Jay-Z thus turns the critiques of hip hop on their head by embracing them as a positive feature of himself and furthermore the culture itself. He not only “sell[s] bullshit”, he is commerce. The task then is to interrogate the impact of hip-hop’s dovetailing with business - to turn the criticisms into strengths - as the primary node to learn, teach and write about the culture.

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Notes 1. I should acknowledge the helpful suggestions provided by my colleagues Nicole Heber, Nathaniel Tkacz and Kendall Shields, as well as encouraging words from Michael Dieter, Saelan Twerdy and the participants of the First Annual Global Conference on the Value of Knowledge. 2. Nas, Hip-Hop Is Dead, CD, Def Jam Records, New York, 2006. All transcriptions of rap lyrics in this paper are by the author. 3. The edited or “clean” version of this song changes the lyrics slightly to “’Cause we love to talk on nasty chickens / Most intellectuals will only half listen.” While, slightly more oblique, the meaning of the line is essentially the same. 4. Sholto Byrnes, ‘Blowing Up a Storm’, The Independent http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article8787.ece, 1 April 2005, (accessed 15 January, 2007). 5. Mike Wise, ‘Opinions on the NBA’s Dress Code Are Far From Uniform’, Washington Post, 23 October 2005, p. A01. 6. ibid. 7. Janny Hu, ‘Some players chafe over Stern fashion statement’, San Francisco Chronicle, 30 October 2005, p. C3. 8. I should pause here to note that I do not want to endorse a clear cut dichotomy between business or corporate culture and hip-hop but to only note that the debate has been couched in these terms. 9. Mike Wise, ‘Opinions on the NBA’s Dress Code Are Far From Uniform’, Washington Post, 23 October 2005, p. A01. 10. These debates are ongoing and have been in progress for awhile. A similar and much more famous example is Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s testimony on behalf of the 2 Live Crew during the group’s obscenity trial. See Houston A. Baker, Jr., Black Studies, Rap and the Academy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993, pp. 33-84. 11. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, eds., That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. vii-x. 12. ibid., p. 5. 13. ibid. 14. ibid. 15. Harold Bloom, The Western Canon, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1994, p. 17. 16. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, eds., That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, Routledge, New York, 2004, p. 5. 17. Emphasis in original. Ibid., p. 3. 18. ibid. Murray Forman also notes here: although there is not yet an institutionalized subdiscipline called ‘hip-hop studies,’ there is a plethora of

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______________________________________________________________ hip-hop research across the disciplines and the volume and sophistication of work in various university departments is consistently increasing. 19. ibid. 20. ibid., p. 4. 21. ibid., pp. 5-6. Also see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1983. 22. Michael Eric Dyson, ‘Foreword’ in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, eds. M. Forman and M.A. Neal, Routledge, New York, 2004, p. xiv. 23. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, eds., That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, Routledge, New York, 2004, p. 389. 24. See Marc Prensky ideas on new literacies in his Digital Game-Based Learning, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001. Also, I am indebted in part here to Alan Liu’s notions of subculture and technology in The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2004, pp. 100-104. 25. Juan Flores, ‘Puerto Rocks: Rap, Roots, and Amnesia’ in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, eds. M. Forman and M.A. Neal, Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. 69-86; Andy Bennett, ‘Hip-Hop am Main, Rappin’ on the Tyne: Hip-Hop Culture as a Local Construct in Two European Cities’ in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, eds. M. Forman and M.A. Neal, Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. 177-200. 26. Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 1994, p. 2. 27. ibid., p. 3. 28. ibid., p. 130 29. ibid., p. 183.; David Palumbo-Liu, Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1999, pp. 183-193. 30. Yvonne Bynoe, Getting Real about Global Hip Hop, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 3(1): Winter/Spring 2002: p. 77. 31. ibid., p. 79. 32. Stuart Hall, ‘Encoding, Decoding’ in The Cultural Studies Reader: Second Edition, ed. Simon During, Routledge, New York, 1999, p. 515. 33. Yvonne Bynoe, Getting Real about Global Hip Hop, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 3(1): Winter/Spring 2002: p. 80. 34. Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn, Yes Yes Ya’ll, Da Capo Press, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 25-63. 35. Tony Mitchell, Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 2001, pp. 1-2. 36. ibid., 3. 37. ibid., 11. 38. Ian Condry, Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization, Duke University Press, 2006, p. 29.

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______________________________________________________________ 39. Ian Maxwell, Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip-Hop Down Under Comin’ Upper, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 2003, pp. 11-20. 40. Stuart Hall, ‘Encoding, Decoding’ in The Cultural Studies Reader: Second Edition, ed. Simon During, Routledge, New York, 1999, pp. 507-517. 41. Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2004, pp. 392-393; the quotation is from Alan Liu, ‘The Humanities: a Technical Profession’ in Teaching, Technology, Textuality: Approaches to New Media, eds. M. Hanrahan and D.L. Madsen, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2006, p. 17. 42. Alan Liu, ‘The Humanities: a Technical Profession’ in Teaching, Technology, Textuality: Approaches to New Media, eds. M. Hanrahan and D.L. Madsen, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2006, p. 19 43. Jay-Z’s line is part of Kanye West, ‘Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)’ in Late Registration, CD, Roc-a-Fella Records, New York, 2005. Dyson quotation is from Meta DuEwa Jones, ‘An Interview With Michael Eric Dyson,’ Callaloo, Vol. 29, issue 3, 2006, p. 799.

Bibliography Anderson, B. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, London, 1983. Baker, Jr., H.A. Black Studies, Rap and the Academy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993. Bloom, H. The Western Canon. Harcourt Brace, New York, 1994. Bynoe, Y. Getting Real about Global Hip Hop. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 3(1): Winter/Spring 2002: 77-84. Byrnes, S. ‘Blowing Up a Storm’, The Independent http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article8787.ece, 1 April 2005, (accessed 15 January, 2007). Condry, I. Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization. Duke University Press, Durham, 2006. Dyson, M.E. ‘Foreword’ in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader eds. M. Forman and M.A. Neal. Routledge, New York, 2004, pp. xixiv. Forman, M. and M.A. Neal, eds. That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Routledge, New York, 2004. Fricke, J. and C. Ahearn, eds. Yes Yes Ya’ll. Da Capo Press, Cambridge, 2002. Hall, S. ‘Encoding, Decoding’ in The Cultural Studies Reader: Second Edition ed. S. During. Routledge, New York, 1999, pp. 507-517. Hu, J. ‘Some players chafe over Stern fashion statement’, San Francisco

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______________________________________________________________ Chronicle, 30 October 2005, p. C3. Jones, M.D. ‘An Interview With Michael Eric Dyson’, Callaloo, Vol. 29, issue 3, 2006, pp. 786-802. Liu, A. ‘The Humanities: a Technical Profession’ in Teaching, Technology, Textuality: Approaches to New Media eds. M. Hanrahan and D.L. Madsen. Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2006, pp.11-26. —— . The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2004. Maxwell, I. Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip Hop Down Under Comin’ Upper. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 2003. Mitchell, T., ed. Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 2001. Nas. Hip-Hop Is Dead, CD, Def Jam Records, New York, 2006. Prensky, M. Digital Game-Based Learning. McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001. Rose, T. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 1994. West, K. Late Registration, CD, Roc-a-Fella Records, New York, 2005. Wise, M. ‘Opinions on the NBA’s Dress Code Are Far From Uniform’, Washington Post, 23 October 2005, p. A01.

Knowledge Value through Management S. Ram Vemuri Knowledge is not just out there in reality for humans to use as and when they feel like it. Decisions of either explicit or implicit nature are made, when knowledge is acquired, as well as, when and how it is used. As there are costs incurred, and benefits accrued, in knowledge acquisition and use, knowledge must be managed for achieving best outcomes, however one defines these. This paper is about how knowledge can be best managed so that value potential is better realised. Keywords: pluralism.

Knowledge

value,

knowledge

management,

knowledge

1.

Introduction This paper is concerned with how individuals and societies value knowledge. The proverbial statement that we ‘know the price of every thing but the value of nothing’ applies to knowledge as well. Indeed the price of knowledge must be distinguished from the value of knowledge. Partly because the process used for determining price involves assigning a monetary value in terms of a unit of currency, while value determination is more involved with forming composite measures. Three propositions will be discussed in this paper. They are: (a) assigning value to knowledge largely depends on how knowledge is managed, (b) current management of knowledge is slanted towards finding universal applicability, and, (c) in order to value knowledge better, knowledge needs to be managed in such a way that knowledge pluralism is recognised and at the same time, more importantly, conditions are created for it to flourish. 2.

Assigning Value Through Managing Knowledge Knowledge in this paper is conceptualised as an “understanding gained through experience or study. It is ‘know-how’ or a familiarity with how to do something that enables a person to perform a specialized task. It may also be an accumulation of facts, procedural rules, or heuristics.”1 For it to be harnessed, it is important to recognise that people are the one’s who have the knowledge. As knowledge is power, it is not just there for people to take it whenever it is needed. There are rituals and practices that govern rules for accessing knowledge. As a result those who possess knowledge as much as those who wish to obtain it must make, explicit or implicit, decisions, not only when acquiring knowledge but also when using it.

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______________________________________________________________ People often have a say in how knowledge is to be used. There are costs incurred, and benefits accrued, in obtaining and using knowledge. Most of these costs and effects are influenced by circumstances under which knowledge is produced, captured, gathered, organized and refined. The circumstances influencing costs, benefits and effects are mostly based on situational variables and how they are managed. As decisions are made on the basis of situational variables, knowledge systems are valued depending on a number of circumstances. A valid proposition in this context is that the more informed the decision makers become, the better the outcome of their decisions will be. As a consequence, knowledge values can be enhanced through ‘better’ management. In order to understand what constitutes better management, one needs to appreciate the role management plays in managing knowledge. Management is about getting things done in an appropriate manner. People are at the very core of the management process. There are several approaches to management - process, systems and contingency approaches each emphasising different aspects of management. The process approach “is based on the management functions”2 of planning, organising, leading and controlling. The systems approach on the other hand “recognises the interdependency of internal organisational activities and of the organisation and its external environment”.3 Finally the contingency approach recognises and responds to situational variables as they arise. Such an approach has been “particularly helpful”4 in not only identifying what the situational variables of significance are but also in influencing management actions to enhance organisational performance. These approaches have been adopted in the context of knowledge management as well as management of knowledge systems. It is, however, imperative that an explicit distinction be made between managing knowledge and knowledge management. “Knowledge management (KM) is a newly emerging, interdisciplinary business model that has knowledge within the framework of an organization as its focus.”5 Managing knowledge adopts a much more systemic approach where the focus is more on the assumptions of the nature of knowledge and the subsequent impacts resulting from preferences of one knowledge system over the other. As this paper is concerned with managing knowledge, it will be useful to adopt a contingency approach to managing knowledge to enable potentially high values of knowledge to be generated. A precursor for adopting such an approach is to acknowledge existence of knowledge pluralism. 3.

Existence of Knowledge Pluralism Attwood and Arnold6 suggest that knowledge is simultaneously interpretative, situational and above all else powerful.

S. Ram Vemuri 127 ______________________________________________________________ In the first place, all knowledge is interpretative, that is, knowledge is not natural or already there, but is an artifice, an entity constructed or invented by human beings. Things or objects exist in the world, but knowledge establishes all the meanings they have. In other words, their ‘nature’ does not exist prior to knowledge for it is knowledge which creates their ‘truth’ and reality. In linguistic terms, the word constitutes the world, rather than the converse. Second, all knowledge is contingent, that is, knowledge is neither timeless nor universal, but relative to circumstances and particular (or partial). Knowledge is always situational - it is sought and acquired by individuals for some purpose or another, and as this changes what they ‘know’ will also shift. Third, all knowledge is political, that is, it is constructed by relationships of power - of domination and subordination and is inseparable from these.7 Because of these simultaneous influences on what constitutes knowledge, accurate description of knowledge systems has become a very complex task. This is most visible in the context of creating an understanding of contemporary issues of concern. There have been several attempts to “modify intellectual premises”8 to deal with contemporary concerns involving environment, health, water, other natural resources, as markets, both as institutions and processes, are proving inadequate in creating necessary and appropriate governing structures. A perspective shift has occurred from the ontological and epistemological basis of knowledge to an “improved understanding of variability within knowledge systems as reflected by gender, age, occupational roles.”9 Current explorations of knowledge has “hinged around three axes the past(…)versus the present(…), the West (…) and the rest, and the structuring of the nomothetic Western present around the liberal distinction of the market(…), the State(…) and civil society(…).”10 The resultant effect has been a lexicographic classification of knowledge divides. At one level, all these aspects combined together have created in the popular literature three distinct knowledge systems - the ‘mainstream’, the ‘local’ and the ‘indigenous’. Mainstream knowledge systems are created that are based on scholarly works of “those who wish to construct the most general laws possible about social behaviour via quasi experimental designs, using the data that are presumably replicable and on the whole as quantitative as possible.”11 Local knowledge “is substantially about producing reliably local subjects as well as producing reliably local neighbourhoods within which

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______________________________________________________________ such subjects can be recognised and organised.”12 Local knowledge scholars prefer “dissecting the particular and different”13, and at the same time “their backs go up any time one suggests uniformities.”14 A third category of knowledge is that constructed by Indigenous people. It is multilayered and is used for multiple purposes including according indigenous persons identity as “indigenous information is considered the primary source of knowledge.”15 Apart form these stylised forms of knowledge, there are several other classifications of knowledge prevalent in the literature and many writers concede that it is a challenge to label, classify and structure these different kinds of knowledge systems. For instance Scholz and Tietze16 are concerned with knowledge systems based on disciplines, systems, interests and modes of thought. Mansfield Van is concerned with breeds of knowledge brokers and examines the best way “to facilitate the flow between the different forms of knowledge and know how contained in many actors.”17 Several others are concerned with classification of knowledge along disciplinary lines along natural, social and human sciences. Klein, Grossenbacher Mansuy and others are concerned with knowledge “originating from multiple sub spheres of science, politics, market and civil society.”18 There are also those concerned with distinctions based on tacit, intuitive, expert and lay knowledge classifications. In short, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that there are multiple forms of knowledge that one can detect. Some are based on systems of knowledge that include concepts, beliefs, and perceptions of one another. Others are distinctions emanating from the stock of knowledge, namely what one possesses and what others perceive. There are still others who emphasise process of knowledge acquisition, namely, focus on how it is acquired, augmented, stored and transmitted. Knowledge pluralism is an acknowledgement of existence of all these multiple forms of knowledge constructs. In spite of simultaneous prevalence of several competing knowledge systems, societies have exercised choices to select one knowledge system over the other. The knowledge system shaping ‘modern’ economics is a case in point. 4.

Economic Consolidation Although the “literature of economics is extensive; our use of it is highly selective. Each generation of economists perpetuates what it likes and neglects what it does not”.19 The dominant knowledge system selectively promotes values commensurate with the decision making fraternity to such an extent that there is an “acceptance of a paradigm (that potentially) frees the community from the need to constantly re-examine its first principles and foundational assumptions.”20 For example, for a long time, in the case of Economics as a discipline “it was convenient to pretend that the subject had

S. Ram Vemuri 129 ______________________________________________________________ been invented by Adam Smith in 1776, a convention that saved subsequent economists (and their students) a good deal of work.”21 The downside of such an eventuality was that these convenient starting points incur opportunity costs resulting from mainstreaming economic thinking. Knowledge is valued by providing discipline orientation and many ‘schools’ of thought develop within the confines of its mould. Economics became a study of method making research possible. “Economics is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of mind, a technique of thinking which helps its possessor to draw correct conclusions.”22 Development of various schools of thought creates a perception that there are opportunities for interpreting economic realities from different perspectives. Unfortunately, it is not recognized that even with development of many schools of thought, “many interesting and, perhaps, meritorious works have passed out of the literature and remain unknown and unread”23. These results in knowledge being assigned a value through consolidation of a paradigm based on assumptions of existence of ‘rational’ economic individual - the ‘homo economicus’. Value of knowledge is further consolidated through practices whereby “those that please the orthodox are cited with approval and preserved. It is the ones that neither please nor displease”24 because they are either spoken or written in a medium that others fail to comprehend or those that cannot readily be incorporated into mainstream thinking that “are least likely to survive”25. There are inherent dangers in constructing reality from such a wellfocused, often narrowly conceptualized, framework26 as they unfortunately limit value of knowledge and result in restricting domains of influence for achieving economic betterment. One of the serious ramifications of such occurrences is due to the fact that, “(T)he ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist”27 who are trained in focussing on the behaviour of homo-economicus. Human capacity to tackle the ‘rational’ is limited, among other things, by the vocabulary used, the frameworks adopted and the analytical tools that are available. Therefore, the ways in which ideas are generated, narrated and acted upon all become significant issues. Knowledge and the way it is managed and valued becomes fundamental. 5.

Managing Knowledge Pluralism There is a need to examine the way knowledge is valued. There is also a need to recognise that all humans possess knowledge. Many notable

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______________________________________________________________ and influential Economists, including Alfred Marshall, acknowledged the importance of human knowledge. It has been well said that if all the material wealth in the world were destroyed by an earthquake, leaving only the land, knowledge, and food enough to sustain life till the next harvest, mankind would in a generation or two be nearly as prosperous as before; but, if accumulated knowledge were destroyed, while the material wealth remained, several thousand years might be needed to recover lost ground.28 With increasing awareness of the environmental concerns, climate change and other natural resource related issues, there has been an increasing recognition of the significance of the knowledge of Indigenous people. The indigenous people of the world possess an immense knowledge of their environments, based on centuries of living close to nature. Living in and from the richness and variety of complex ecosystems, they have an understanding of the properties of plants and animals; the functioning of ecosystems and the techniques for using and managing them is particular and detailed.29

Not only is there recognition and celebration of the significance of the knowledge of Indigenous people, but there is also an awakening, in some quarters, that ‘mainstream’ knowledge is too limited in scope and content for it to be universally applied at all times, in all spaces and in all cultural contexts. Much more important feature of contemporary times in terms of knowledge management has been the perceptible shift of focus in recognising the importance of preserving Indigenous knowledge. Knowledge of Indigenous people is proving to be an important analytical base for decisions in some aspects of the contemporary world. It is therefore not surprising that increasingly more and more scientists, technocrats, policy analysts and decision makers rely and accept the need to dwell into the depths of knowledge of Indigenous people in deciding policies. For example, Indigenous knowledge was accorded a high status in Principle 22 of the Rio Declaration. Indigenous people and their communities, and other local communities, have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognize and duly

S. Ram Vemuri 131 ______________________________________________________________ support their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development.30 At a practical level, awareness of significance of knowledge of Indigenous people has led to creation of mechanisms and processes whereby their knowledge could potentially become public knowledge, and can be used in economic policy deliberations. The importance of knowledge of Indigenous people is by no means accepted without questioning. Even today Indigenous knowledge systems are still challenged. The reality is that even where it is recognized; sometimes its acceptance is met with resistance. Recognizing that the knowledge of Indigenous people is indeed even crucial to complete the missing pieces of the puzzles of sustainability continues to be met with reluctance in some quarters. This is bound to happen if the knowledge individuals possess is valued through interpretation based in terms of narrow confines of ‘rational’ ‘homo-economicus’. What is needed is a way forward to manage knowledge of the Indigenous people and at the same time resist in streamlining the knowledge with the mainstream. A far deeper perspective, than has been adopted so far, is needed for managing knowledge. Approaches or conceptual frameworks are needed that would enable people in ‘power’ to grasp the complexities of valuing knowledge for economic betterment without assimilation. This requires emancipation of intellectual sovereignty. Therefore what is needed is to value processes by which knowledge is acquired, produced, captured, gathered, organized and refined rather than focus on simply conducting analyses of outcomes. This involves valuing freedom to think and act. The challenge “is to articulate what sorts of strategies for freedom are needed”31 and how that freedom can be nurtured so that appropriate values can be assigned so that knowledge pluralisms can flourish. The ramifications for policies in general and education in particular are far reaching. Fundamentally to get value form different knowledge structures and processes is to create an enabling society that focuses on process rather than outcomes. This requires an identification of the need to shift policy thinking. The call made in this paper is indeed a challenge for conventional policy proponents in an environment that promotes economical rational thinking.

Notes 1. Elias M. Awad & Hassan M. Ghaziri, Knowledge Management, Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2004, p. 33.

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______________________________________________________________ 2. ibid., p. 58. 3. ibid., p. 58. 4. ibid., p. 58. 5. ibid., p. 2. 6. Bain Attwood and John Arnold (eds.), ‘Power, knowledge and Aborigines’, Special edition of Journal of Australian Studies, La Trobe University Press, Victoria, 1992. 7. ibid., pp. 1-2. 8. I. Wallerstein, ‘Anthropology, sociology, and other dubious disciplines’, Current Anthropology, vol. 44, No. 4, August – October 2003, p. 454. 9. D.M. Warren, ‘Comments: Paul Sillitoe. The development of Indigenous knowledge, a new applied anthropology’, Current Anthropology, vol. 39, no. 2, April 1998, pp. 244-245. 10. ibid., p. 454. 11. ibid., p. 455. 12. A. Appadurai, Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1996, p. 181. 13. Wallerstein, p. 455. 14. Wallerstein, p. 455. 15. V.Y. Kim, S. Park and D. Park, ‘The challenge of cross-cultural psychology: the role of Indigenous psychologies’, Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2000, pp. 65. 16. RW Scholz and O Tietze, Embedded case methods, integrating quantitative and qualitative knowledge, Sage, NY, 2002. 17. Van M. Mansfield, ‘The need for knowledge brokers’, in B Tress, G Tress, ed. A. Valk and G. Fry, Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary landscape studies: potential and limitations, Wageningen Alterra Green World Research, 2003, p. 36. 18. J.T. Klein, W Grossenbacher-Mansuy et al, Transdiciplinarity: joint problem solving among sciences, technology and society: an effective way for managing complexity, Brikhauser, Basel, 2001, p. 231. 19. Guy Roth, The Origin of Economic Ideas, McMillan London, 1989, p. 2. 20. Thomas S. Kuhn, The structure of scientific revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970, p. 1. 21. Roth, p. 2. 22. J.M. Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest and money, McMillan, London, 1936, p. 3. 23. Roth, p. 2. 24. ibid., p. 2. 25. ibid., p. 2. 26. It is in the interest of schools of thought in the mainstream to support exclusivity. 27. Keynes, 1936, p. 24.

S. Ram Vemuri 133 ______________________________________________________________ 28. Cited in David Riesman, Alfred Marshall: progress and politics, Mcmillan, London, 1987, p. 91, quoting Alfred Marshall, 1923, Industry and trade, McMillan: London, 1923, p. 466. 29. Federico Mayor, Foreword, Nature and resources, vol. 30, no. 1, 1994, p. 2. 30. Julian T Inglis, Introduction, Nature and resources, vol. 30, no. 2, 1994, p. 3. 31. Lester-Irabinna Rigney, ‘A first perspective of Indigenous Australian participation in science: framing Indigenous research towards Indigenous Australian intellectual sovereignty’, Kaurna Higher Education Journal, vol. 7, August 2001, p. 10.

Bibliography Appadurai, A., Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1996. Attwood, Bain and John Arnold (eds.), ‘Power, knowledge and Aborigines’, Special edition of Journal of Australian Studies, La Trobe University Press, Victoria, 1992. Awad, Elias M. & Hassan M. Ghaziri, Knowledge management, Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2004. Inglis, Julian T., Introduction, Nature and resources, vol. 30, no. 2, 1994, p. 1. Keynes, JM, The general theory of employment, interest and money, McMillan, London, 1936. Kim, V.Y., S. Park and D. Park, ‘The challenge of cross-cultural psychology: the role of Indigenous psychologies’, Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2000, p. 65. Klein, J.T., W. Grossenbacher-Mansuy et al, Transdiciplinarity: joint problem solving among sciences, technology and society: an effective way for managing complexity, Brikhauser, Basel, 2001, p. 231. Kuhn, Thomas S, The structure of scientific revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970. Mansfield, Van M., ‘The need for knowledge brokers’, in B. Tress, G. Tress, ed. A. Valk and G. Fry, Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary landscape studies: potential and limitations, Wageningen Alterra Green World Research, 2003, p. 36. Mayor, Federico, Foreword, Nature and Resources, vol. 30, no. 1, 1994, p. 2. Riesman, David, Alfred Marshall: progress and politics, McMillan, London, 1987.

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______________________________________________________________ Rigney, Lester-Irabinna, ‘A first perspective of Indigenous Australian participation in science: framing Indigenous research towards Indigenous Australian intellectual sovereignty’, Kaurna Higher Education Journal, vol. 7, August 2001, pp. 1-13. Roth, Guy, The Origin of Economic Ideas, McMillan London, 1989. Scholz, R.W. and O. Tietze, Embedded case methods: integrating quantitative and qualitative knowledge, Sage, NY, 2002. Wallerstein, I, ‘Anthropology, sociology, and other dubious disciplines’, Current Anthropology, vol. 44, no. 4, August – October 2003, pp. 460461. Warren, D.M., ‘Comments: Paul Sillitoe. The development of Indigenous knowledge. A new applied anthropology’, Current Anthropology, vol. 39, no. 2, April 1998, pp. 223-235.

Part III Epistemological Issues

Making the Structures Tumble Mireta von Gerlach The value of knowledge can be considered in a purely philosophical sense, or in terms of examples of historical cases. A German song entitled Thoughts are free encourages us to use thought to break down mental barriers. That free thought as the unprejudiced use of rationality enables us to break down political, religious and even geographical barriers is shown in the case of Henry the Navigator. Searching for an all-water route to India the Portuguese prince gathered scholars and sea-faring people from various religious and cultural backgrounds at the “School of Sagres” (notwithstanding the fact that in his earlier years he had been a fighter against Islam, and as a devoted Catholic was highly opposed to the Jewish and other “Barbarian” faiths. In order to overcome the limiting ideas of conservative geography that deemed Africa and Asia connected he invited people whose knowledge was best suited to resisting traditional understandings. By freeing his thoughts of social and religious barriers Henry managed to break down geographical borders and became the key figure in Europe’s progress into the age of “geographical enlightenment”. Here new knowledge itself proved a value and set a still valid example of overcoming borders through the application of thought. Key Words: Henry the Navigator, Ptolemy’s geography, School of Sagres, Zeitgeist, knowledge.

1.

Some Theoretical Evaluations of the Value of Free Thinking In a letter from 1448 to Henry of Aviz, Prince of Portugal, Poggio Bracciolini, the papal secretary, congratulates the son of king João I. on his courageous journeys. These, he states, let the Portuguese prince surpass the deeds of Alexander the Great und Julius Cesar. These two had opened the ways to already known, whereas under Henry regions until then unknown by Europeans were actually discovered.1 Bracciolini addresses a fact about Henry’s achievements that I would like to consider in more in detail: the Value of New Knowledge - using and gathering of novel information the grand cause of discovery: that is, opening new regions for his country and complementing the existing knowledge on the world. Indeed, one particular characteristic of Henry has continuously and consistently been pointed out by his biographers: “a true lover of science, always actuated by an unquenchable desire to find out the secrets of the earth … ”.2 To “solve a secret” requires an investigation – a term which is synonymous for the collection of additional knowledge about a particular subject. The sheer fact that something is

Making the Structures Tumble 138 ______________________________________________________________ defined as a secret worthy of discovering points to its special value. This in turn means that knowledge relating to the secret is regarded as being worth the trouble involved in all investigations and, once discovered, entails a considerable advantage for its possessor.3 A condition of knowledge is thinking, and if we understand thoughts to be part of knowledge, or a preliminary stage of it, or knowledge as the sum of thoughts, it is necessary to consider the value of thoughts. In 18th century Germany a song originated as an answer to the French Revolution. Still in use - and one which all elementary school-children have learned to the present day - it is called “Die Gedanken sind frei”, “Thoughts are free”. The third verse reads: Und sperrt man mich ein im finsteren Kerker, das alles sind rein vergebliche Werke; denn meine Gedanken zerreißen die Schranken und Mauern entzwei: Die Gedanken sind frei. In English translation: And if tyrants take me and throw me in prison my thoughts will burst free, like blossoms in season Foundations will crumble, the structures will tumble, And free man will cry: Die Gedanken sind frei! The song describes the value of thoughts as an antidote to physical constraints. Thoughts are presented as a force able to break down barriers and overcoming boarders, expressed here as a metaphor that allows for interpretation in a literal sense, too. It describes the fragmentation and collapse of limiting structures if one’s free, or maybe freed, and thinking is used to find a way out of restriction. Thoughts are free - to realise this value, though, it might at times be of advantage to have an institution where free thinking is put to use and knowledge gathered to a defined end in order to “make foundations crumble”. 2.

From Thought to Knowledge Thoughts are accumulated into understanding and knowledge which in turn, if institutionalised, appears as an academy or school. One legendary historic example for an institution founded by a person with genuine intent to break down physical, that is, geographical, barriers was the 15th century Portuguese School of Sagres. This “school” served Prince Henry, later surnamed the “Navigator“, to gather scholars, scientists and navigators from different kinds of cultural and religious backgrounds in order to plan and

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139 ______________________________________________________________ conduct voyages of discovery along the West African coast towards Guinea and possibly beyond. To be sure, there never existed a School of Sagres as a physical entity, as 16th century sources and later ones want to make us believe.4 That is a legend. In a different sense, however, the term “School of Sagres” applies quite well to the situation at Sagres and as collective term can be used to describe the accumulation of knowledge Henry collected and realised at his residency. Therefore, the “School of Sagres” is understood here not as an academic institution but rather a school of thought, a focused initiative for the gathering and application of information, a pool of knowledge, represented in its originator Henry the Navigator who directed the collected knowledge toward a clearly defined end: the discovery of a navigable route down the West African coast which would open trade with new markets. Henry grew up in the early 15th century, the same century that is generally understood as the one during which the Great Age of Discovery commenced, as it was in this century that Columbus crossed the Atlantic (1492) and Vasco da Gama reached India (1497/8). Less then eighty years earlier, however, Europe was sequestered and physically bounded within its own geographical barriers. Up until then the only great discoveries were the forgotten one by the Vikings who venturedto the northern parts of America (10th century); the undisclosed (Arabian) travels down the south-eastern coast of Africa to about the latitude of Madagascar by the Emosaid family (8001300); and those to Mongolian Asia by Marco Polo, Wihelm von Rubruck and Giovanni da Piano di Carpine in the 13th century.5 Thus the boundaries of 15th century Europe were the European-Atlantic coastline down to Morocco, southwards of which Muslim and Barbarian states and traders represented geographical barriers, and political obstacles barred mass passages through the East. In effect, then, the Europeans were confined to their own shores. A number of factors contributed to the geographical restrictions that were in force even though hopes of finding an alternative way to the overland-routes (which made European merchants dependent on foreign merchants) had risen continuously. There was already some knowledge about those parts of the world, all of which was then called “India” - a large, unchartered region in the “Orient” – as individual Europeans, as mentioned above, had already been travelling in these parts. What was missing were three essential factors: First, the geographical knowledge of the world outside of Europe and in particular south of northern Africa was still at the level of antiquity quite literally as the 2nd century geography by Ptolemy was still more or less valid and in use. This geographical concept had Africa connected with the Antarctic landmass and the Indian Ocean was considered a large lake. There were maps that depicted Africa as an independent continent but these were generally not as well established as the Ptolemean one. It is important to note

Making the Structures Tumble 140 ______________________________________________________________ that Ptolemy’s geographical concept had been accepted and in use for about 1300 years and had not been proven wrong in Europe. The only alternative to Roman knowledge was Arabian science. Their astronomy, mathematics and travel-trading in the eastern hemisphere was much more developed and rendered more detailed information. There were, in fact, world maps more accurate then the Ptolemean one, the latest produced by a certain Edrisi in the 14th century.6 Europe had depended on the scientific output of the rivalling culture since the Spanish emirates/caliphates (8th century), but political disorder within the Muslim world caused one of Europe’s most important sources of science to dry up.7 Therefore, even though there were in fact other ideas about the shape of southern Africa, Ptolemy’s was probably the one most deeply imbedded into the European knowledge of that time. While the general idea of the shape of the world - disc versus ball – had aleady6been discussed since antiquity and was seen to be suggested by astronomical observations, there was absolutely no hint as to the shape of southern Africa.8 Second, the type of ships and, consequently, third, the state of navigation were not sufficiently developed to undertake daring voyages into the unknown. 3.

Knowledge versus Zeitgeist As well as the technical and scientific shortcomings, the spirit of an era - the Zeitgeist – also often worked as a strong obstacle to progress. And it did in this case, too. Henry’s Zeitgeist was mainly determined by religious and political-religious factors. Portugal had been under Moorish occupation for more then five centuries (711-1250). After driving the Muslim occupants out of their country the Portugese still had to fight Castilian claims to their throne (in 1385). Finance for the Portuguese Reconquista and the battle for independence, as well as military aid and protection, were mainly provided by the wealthy and powerful Order of Christ. The Order was a financial and also at least partly ideological heir of the crusading Knights Templars.9 Politically and ideologically, the liberation from Moorish occupation, brought about by Christian knights, resulted in the Portuguese court’s feeling obliged to continue supporting the crusading spirit. This, in turn, flowed into a severe ideological as well as physical fight against the Muslim world in general. Henry, as can be seen from documents about his youth, absorbed these mental currents and, in his younger years, acted as a true son of his times. The most prominent example of this was the battle of Ceuta in 1415. This was an action supplementary to a failed crusade in the Holy Land; it lacked objective justification in terms of a military Moorish threat as posed, for example, by Ceuta.10 Henrycan be identified as one of the strong supporters of the idea of conquering Ceuta. He as well as his brothers personally participated in this battle.

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141 ______________________________________________________________ As much as the case of Ceuta shows young Henry’s accordance with his Zeitgeist, it also constituted a turning point in his life. The city was host to a huge number of little shops dealing with merchandise imported by transSaharan caravans from south of the desert.11 It had always been suspected in the Christian world that gold was available in abundance in sub-Saharan countries. Still, North African merchants never disclosed any information on the whereabouts of the metal which was absolutely invaluable to European merchants in order to finance their long-distance trade with the east.12 It is generally accepted that Henry started to develop a sense for economics and the value of new markets during his sojourn in Ceuta (of a few months only). Here he became aware of the fact that knowledge lacking in his home country might be available from other sources that lay outside of his sphere – a sphere that was until then defined by religion, personal conviction or, for that matter, simply by limitations of creative thinking. The idea to find a sea-passage to India, again, was not entirely new; a few adventurous sailors had earlier even tried to sail along the West African coast but never made it - or never made it back. The main obstacle was the Cape Bojador beyond which, as myth had it, a blood-red sea and demonic creatures and terrible winds made sailing and surviving impossible; in addition, contemporary (ca. 1390) Muslim text warned that beyond the (known parts of the) Western Atlantic all ships would be certainly be “lost in mist, fog, and vapour”.13 As no other reliable account was readily available for the general public, the universal understanding of the time was that this cape couldn’t be circumnavigated. The psychological impact the myth had on seaman and adventurers alike cannot be underestimated, as Russell points out convincingly.14 In Portugal there wasn’t sufficient knowledge about the coasts or even the shape of the South African tip, neither in terms of geography and cartography nor in technical terms of the appropriate shipbuilding and navigation. But Henry - an extremely well-educated person - had had access to those few rare accounts of those very few earlier adventurers who had previously sailed in this direction. And he was obviously able to judge beyond the Zeitgeist-imbued legends about Cape Bojador and to judge the accuracy and scientific content of the published itineraries. First there was the French Le Canarien which describes the travels of Gadifer de La Salle and Jean de Béthencourt who sailed to the latitude of Cape Bojador around 1400 a fact that was hardly known in Europe. Mainly, though, Henry relied on the second, the Libro del Conosçimento del Mundo written by an anonymous 14th century Castilian author. The Libro is a fictitious account (as the author himself points out) of a trip around the world along various new routes including one around the feared Cape Bojador. Here, as a rare exception, the circumnavigation of the cape is not problematic, neither for Christians nor for Moors, as is explicitly stated (as the first-person fictitious narrator sailed on a

Making the Structures Tumble 142 ______________________________________________________________ Moorish ship). Despite being a novel we can conclude with some certainty that the book was based on real geographic information which the author probably drew from Majorcan world maps and other second-hand Moorish information: as we now know, Giovanni da Carigano, a merchant from Genoa influenced 14th century cartography by adding knowledge he drew from the trans-Saharan caravans and merchants while he lived in Northern Morocco around 1320. In order to get his ships started and help outline the coastal geography of North-West Africa Henry invited, it is presumed, Jewish cartographers from Majorca to Sagres. It is more difficult to put forward anything reliable about other people Henry encountered, but it is to be supposed that specialists from related fields came to see the prince and helped him work out his plans for this voyage of discovery. Additional information was brought to him by his brother Pedro who gathered extensive cartographical material during his sojourns at different European courts and in capital cities such as Florence (the 15th century centre of geography). One Master Jerome, or Jacome of Majora, perhaps a Jewish cartographer from Majorca, worked for him, as states Duarte Pacheco Pereira.15 Also, the 1375Catalan world map by the Jewish master of cartography, Abraham Cresques, rendered information, in particular as it showed the 1346-voyage of the Majorcan Jacme Ferrer to the legendary Río de Ouro (“gold river”) south of Cape Bojador. In order to gather new information, Henry used still other nonstandard measures. One example was the interrogation of two captured and previously cast-away Italians who had been enslaved by Western African Barbary corsairs (1416).16 On all later voyages he made it obligatory to bring back to Portugal one or two natives from each new region where his captains landed, in order to question them at length about their homelands. All this happened at the School of Sagres, even though it is hard to determine exactly who came to Sagres and how Henry’s plans were put together. But, according to John Ure interpretation of the scarce information of source materials available, Henry created an empiricist and fact-oriented atmosphere at Sagres and was personally responsible for the scientific use of knowledge that countered the spirit of the time - the Zeitgeist.17 For example, nautical instruments - until then disregarded on the basis of superstitious beliefs, as, for instance, that the magnet was witchcraft - were scientifically examined and their use appropriately implemented. The use of the cross staff (balestilha) was made obligatory for all ships to help the measuring of latitudes so that more accurate maps for subsequent voyages could be created.18 One of the most visible achievements of the use of new knowledge was the development of a new type of ship. The caravela, standard ship for the discovery voyages from 1446, was the result of many years of technical

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143 ______________________________________________________________ development. It combined the advantages of the Portuguese nao and the North African dhow. Even though this type of ships has been first mentioned in a Portuguese source in 1255, as Ure points out, Henry much improved the caravela; here it is assumed that he made use of Arabic knowledge to this end. There are not many sources about the theory of ship construction at Sagres; in all probability, this information was kept secret at the time in order to keep from foreign spies details of technical inventions which put the Portuguese in an advantageous position against other European trading nations. 4.

The Realisation of Knowledge From 1420 on we have proof that Henry started sending out ships to travel along the African Atlantic coast. Even if, as according to Ca’da Mosto’s accounts,19 the first voyages were more or less corsair raids to plunder and annoy the people of Morocco,20 as soon Henry’s ships advanced to the more southerly regions of Morocco, it became his stated goal to sail beyond the feared Cape Bojador with the aim to reach Guinea and the subSaharan gold fields: “Knowing how, within the memory of men, there was no information among Christians about the seas, lands, and people beyond Cape Nun towards the south … I set about enquiring and discovering, from many years past to present time, what lay from the said Cape Nun [slightly north of Cape Bojador] onwards…”21. We can thus safely speak of a discovery enterprise from 1434 onwards, when the Portuguese came into the regions of Cape Bojador, while the first corsair-voyages merely spurred on the planned discovery that was to be based on and supported by the accumulation of scientific knowledge until then unavailable in Portugal or Christian Europe. It took 16 years finally to round the Cape Bojador and it is due to the continuous problems Henry and his sailors were prepared to put up that Gil Eanes finally did accomplish the mission. This was, again as Russell points out, the real outstanding accomplishment of Henry’s because it was a psychological one.22 All further proceedings towards Africa’s southern tip were natural consequences of this event. Often, the true dimension of a particular event or achievement only makes itself clear in the retrospective: “…he brought together the East and the West that men might learn to exchange wealth”23, as the contemporary chronicler Zurara described the effect Henry’s voyages had in the longer term. Later, the Scottish 18th century poet James Thomson portrayed Henry as a man “who had taught humanity the advantages of worldwide commerce, thus turning the search for glory”24, which for our purposes can be described as the realisation of knowledge “into something useful,”25 into a very realistic and useful value, as we can read in his verse about the Prince:

Making the Structures Tumble 144 ______________________________________________________________ Then from ancient gloom emerged The rising world of trade: the genius then, Of Navigation, held in hopeless sloth, Had slumbered on the vast Atlantic deep For idle ages, starting, heard at last The Lusitanian prince, who, Heaven-inspired, To love of useful glory roused mankind, And in unbounded commerce mixed the world.26 Wealth only played a minor role in the initial years of the enterprise while scientific curiosity, coupled with the hope for positive economic long-term results, constituted the initial driving force toward the discoveries. Indeed, until well into the 1440’s Henry’s expedition did not yield any profits but had to be financed from the chests of the Order of Christ. It was only from the time when Fort Arguim was built in Guinea (1445) and slaves and gold were brought back to Portugal that the expeditions were financially balanced.27 These conditions led to a great deal of unpopularity for the Sagres-enterprise at the court and Henry had to have an even stronger belief in his enterprise to outweigh the resistance at the court. A mere fantastic idea would not have sufficed to justify his actions and it can be assumed, therefore, that Henry had collected sufficient information and knowledge about safely navigable seapassages and about the countries and ports he intended to reach to enable him to hold his position. 5.

The Structures have Tumbled Henry “the Navigator” made the foundations of old Europe crumble, the geographical structures tumble, through his free thought and accumulated knowledge. The value of his knowledge becomes manifest in the collapse of Europe’s physical boundaries. From the long-term perspective this in fact was the beginning of globalisation. And, with the wisdom of hindsight, Henry’s case can serve well as a general model for present-day global boundaries. The old geographical limitations are now replaced by mental barriers that still lock us in, even if the nature of the restriction is quite different from that of past times. One prominent example is articulated in the recent movie “Babel”, showing how much boundaries (of all kinds) affect our lives. In this film, people from different cultural backgrounds meet in extraordinary situations in a world that allows (for some) travelling to remote parts through technical progress and wealth. What technology cannot erase, though, are mental differences (the “Babylonian confusion of languages”) that cause a great deal of misunderstanding and trouble: a clash of cultures the core of which seems to lie to a considerable extent in different zeitgeistdetermined frameworks. What “Babel” shows is that a massive mental barrier has been built up between the Western World and the Muslim World - a

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145 ______________________________________________________________ barrier that has both historical and recent roots - which severely constrains, in many different ways, institutions and individuals on both sides. Free, or freed, thoughts (of which, arguably, the film is an example) could gradually lead to new knowledge and thus undermine mental barriers that stand in the way of mutual understanding.

Notes 1. The letter is edited in Monumenta Henricana, ed.: A.J. Dinis, Vol. ix, No. 186, pp. 297-302. 2. Bourne, Edward: Essays in Historical Criticism, 1901, Vol. 2, p. 189. 3. For an audience of non-philosophers the short article by Toni Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen (as well as the volume it is published in) gives a good impression of the state of discussion about “Value”: Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni: Robert Nozick’s Radical Value Realizationism, in: Patterns of Value. Essays on Formal Axiology and Value Analysis, Vol, 2, eds. W. Rabinowicz and T. Rønnow-Rasmussen, Lund Philosophy Reports, 2004. 4. Russel, Peter E.: Prince Henry “the Navigator”, New Haven 2000, p. 7. This belief has later been mainly produced by R.H. Major and his biography on Prince Henry: Major, Richard H.: Life of Prince Henry surnamed the Navigator, London 1868. 5. see Beazley, C. Raymond: Prince Henry of Portugal and His Political, Commercial, and Colonizing Work, in: The American Historical Review, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jan., 1912), pp. 252-267. I am referring here to the electronic version available at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18757): p. 28. 6. About the Arabian world maps see Drecoll, Carsten: Idrísí aus Sizilien: der Einfluß eines arabischen Wissenschaftlers auf die Entwicklung der europäischen Geographie, Egelsbach 2000. 7. See Beazley, op. cit., p. 27. 8. Knowledge about Egyptian voyages from around 600 BC that actually sailed down the East African coast and returned to Egypt via the Straits of Gibraltar was lost or not available to Europeans. 9. On the Order of Christ and the Knights Templars see Schulz, Werner: Andreaskreuz und Christusorden, Freiburg (Schweiz), 1976. 10. The reader may excuse that the story of the battle of Ceuta is told here in brief terms only and therefore lacks a good many details that might be out for discussion. 11. See Ure, John: , John: Prince Henry the Navigator, London 1977, p. 54. 12. See Bovill, E.W.: The Golden Trade of the Moors, London 1968, p. 108. 13. See Beazley, op. cit., p. 27. Russell (Prince Henry, p. 129), however, suggests that those Muslims who knew about the non-dangerous nature of

Making the Structures Tumble 146 ______________________________________________________________ Cape Bojador purposely didn’t correct the legends about it in order to keep Christians off those regions. 14. Russell, Prince Henry, p. 111, 113. 15. Pereira, Duarte Pacheco: Esmeraldo de situ orbis (available in reprint and in English translation from the Haklyut Society, London 1937). There has been much confusion about the identity of Master Jerome. For a long time it was debated that he might have been the son of Abraham Cresques, the author of the famous Catalan world map from 1375. Russell, by comparing his life dates, convincingly concludes that this option is highly improbable (Russell, Portugal, Spain etc., p. 121). 16. Beazley, op.cit., p. 82. 17. Ure, op. cit, pp. 102. 18. ibid., chap. VI and VII. 19. Ca’da Mosto, Alvise: Die Reisen des Venetianers Alvise da Cà da Mosto an der Westküste Afrikas 1455 und 1456, ed. Joseph Rackl, Nürnberg 1898. 20. See also Russell, Peter E.: Portugal, Spain and the African Atlantic, Aldershot 1995, p. 19. 21. op. cit. from Silva Marques¸ J.M. da: Descobrimentos portugueses: documentos para a sua história, I, Lissabon 1944, no., 426, p. 544. 22. Russell, Prince Henry, p. 111. 23. The original Portuguese reads: “Ca tu per continuades passage~es fizeste ajuntar o levante com o poente, porque as gentes aprendessem a comuder as riquezas.“ Zurara, Gomes Eanes: Crónica do descobrimento e conquista da Guiné, ed. Reis Brasil, Mem Martins 1989, p. 41. 24. Russell, Portugal, Spain, etc., p. 8. 25. ibid. 26. Thomson, James : The Seanson, lines 1005-12. 27. See Bovill, op. cit., pp. 115-118.

Bibliography Almeida, Virginia de Castro E. (ed.): Conquests and discoveries of Henry the Navigator being the Chronicles of Azurara - Portuguese Navigators and Colonizers of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, George Allen & Unwin London 1936. Barros, João de: Asía, Decada 1. Beazley, C. Raymond: ‘Prince Henry of Portugal and His Political, Commercial, and Colonizing Work’, in: The American Historical Review, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jan., 1912), pp. 252-267. Electronic version available at Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18757.

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147 ______________________________________________________________ Bourne, Edward G.: Essays in Historical Criticism, 1901 (Vol. 2). Bovill, E.W.: The Golden Trade of the Moors, London 1968. Brochado, Costa/Vitorino Nemesio, Father Maurico S. J./Joaquim Bensaude et al: Dom Henrique the Navigator, Lisbon 1960. Ca`da Mosto, Alvise da: Navigazioni (Ca' da Mosto, Alvise: Die Reisen des Venetianers Alvise da Cà da Mosto an der Westküste Afrikas 1455 und 1456, ed. Joseph Rackl, Nürnberg 1898.) Chapelet, Roger et.al.: Sagres, the school and the ships, 1985. Drecoll, Carsten: Idrísí aus Sizilien: der Einfluß eines arabischen Wissenschaftlers auf die Entwicklung der europäischen Geographie, Egelsbach 2000. Grosjean, Georges: Mapamundi, Zürich 1977. Jackson, Rebecca Mullins: To love of useful glory: Prince Henry the Navigator and the school at Sagres, Manuscript text (University of Alabama in Birmingham), 1979. ‘Prince Henry the Navigator’, in: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 3, No. (May, 1894), pp. 388-403. Rogers, Francis M.: The Travels of the Infante Dom Pedro of Portugal, Cambridge 1961. Russell, Peter E.: Portugal, Spain and the African Atlantic, 1343-1490. - Prince Henry „the navigator“, New Haven/London 2000. Sacrobosto, João de/Nunes, Pedro: Tratado da sphera, Lissabon 1537 Ure, John: Prince Henry the Navigator, London 1977. Wauwermas, Henri Emmanuel: Henri le Navigateur et l’Academie portugaise de Sagres, 1890. Zurara, Gomes Eanes: Crónica do descobrimento e conquista da Guiné, ed. Reis Brasil, Mem Martins 1989. German translation: Pögl, Gabriela (ed.): Heinrich der Seefahrer oder die Suche nach Indien, Berlin 1989.

The Classics & Australian Culture Wars Mark Rolfe The recent ‘culture wars’ in Australia follow a tradition of engaged rhetoric that originated during the time of Alex de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold. So began a linguistic formula connecting culture, class, right leadership, moral worth and democracy. Culture became part of the ethical appeal of politicians, such as Robert Menzies. The formula took a more pessimistic turn in the 1920s with the propaganda model. John Howard claims the post-modern cultural elites undermine traditional education and the classics, however the consumer society undermined the moral place of the classics in our society. Howard’s interest in the classics has more to do with attacking the left and a concern with purging ‘wrong’ ideas. Keywords: Rhetoric, classics, democracy, propaganda, Robert Menzies, John Howard, culture wars.

On the eighteenth of February 1963 Robert Menzies, prime minister of Australia since 1949 and leader of the rightwing Liberal Party, told Queen Elizabeth II and a dinner audience that Australian affection for the monarch could be put “in the words of that old seventeenth century poet who wrote, ‘I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die’.” The Queen is on film wincing at this declaration. We do not know whether she felt distaste but that has been the reaction of many who cringed at his reverence and mocked his Britishness as antiquated in a modern Australia. However, the day has another significance that differentiates Menzies from his party and ideological successor John Howard, their views of knowledge and their social contexts. Such distinctions are important for Howard is not another conservative Menzies upholding traditional Australian values, although much of his public credibility lies in making such claims. His education reforms have less to do with preserving Western culture and more to do with attacking the left in the so-called culture wars which have dominated Australian political discourse since the 1990s. The reforms have more in common with a propaganda model than with the liberal education Menzies understood and consequently they may damage the very thing they purport to save. 1.

Democracy, Culture & Ethos That day in 1963 is a moment when the country was changing and Australians since then have not understood what Menzies was doing. Until the 1960s Australians understood that high culture made a person a truly

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______________________________________________________________ civilised human being. Menzies was born in 1894 and was one of the last in a line of barrister-politicians since the nineteenth century who established their credibility as upright men with voters by quoting from the political and literary classics. High culture was a part of many politicians’ ethos, one of three means of proofs in rhetoric, which aims to garner the trust of an audience. No matter how rational, a speech will fall on deaf ears if an audience does not respect the credibility and character of the orator, who must employ the values of the audience and of the society in which they live.1 Menzies remembered thousands of lines of Wordsworth, Shakespeare and many other poets whom he quoted in speeches.2 Our second prime minister, Alfred Deakin, had a similar predilection. Our first prime minister, Edmund Barton, liked to pepper his early parliamentary speeches with Greek and Latin quotations, which he learnt in a degree in classics and English literature at Sydney University under the famed scholar Charles Badham.3 According to Greg Melleuish, Badham argued that: the university man trained in the techniques of a liberal education would possess a clear consciousness, ‘full of reverence, refinement and clear-headedness ... by the very conditions of his discipline temperate in opinion, temperate in measures, temperate in demeanour.’4 Temperance and refinement were important virtues in the wake of Democracy in America by Alex de Tocqueville in 1835. He applauded democracy but feared the tyranny of the majority. Here was the old Platonic anxiety about mob rule that passed to John Stuart Mill. He was a friend of democracy yet feared for individual rights against public opinion.5 His solution was an elite that could educate the working class to the right path.6 However, his fear was cultivated by a linguistic construction that is our legacy. Mill made the individual so good by making public opinion look so bad. He relied on a conception of the collective thoughts of ordinary people that was free-floating, homogenous, passive, child-like and separated from reason. It could be loved, moved, and manipulated but so could be corrupted with wrong ideas. Thus it needed leading by a proper elite, otherwise democracy was endangered.7 This abstraction acquired more sinister tones with the century, as we shall see. Right leadership meant a cultured leadership and here we come to the moral purpose of knowledge. Like Mill, Matthew Arnold thought that a cultured middle class was necessary to lead society. Thus, he set “sweetness and light,” or beauty and truth, as great spiritual and intellectual bulwarks against the horrors of materialism. Culture was for him “the best that has been thought and said in the world” and this passed to others as a reverence for the classics. Culture was that rampart against self-indulgence and the

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______________________________________________________________ “anarchy” of doing what one likes. Culture was good for you. It civilised a person, raised morals and improved character by emphasising self-denial, duty and service. That is, such virtues held at bay the excesses of industrialisation and democracy.8 Australians understood all this until their post-war import of American consumerism undermined such behaviour and thus the moral role of the classics. Arnold was the most famous expositor of a nineteenth century trend which endorsed books on the classics and etiquette, higher education and public lectures as means of spreading culture. Book clubs became additional means for spreading gentility.9 In 1855 Robert Blakey created the first canon of political theory with his A History of Political Literature from the Earliest Times. This work contained nearly all the names and texts which later became the ‘classics’ of political theory since Plato and which he thought were all concerned with the same set of universal abstract political issues, regardless of historicist niceties. Hence Blakey not only created the idea of a political theory tradition but also clasped it to a teleology of progress and the rise of Western civilisation.10 Will Durant was one of the more famous writers to use this model for his Story of Philosophy series and Story of Civilization series which were distributed through book clubs. 2.

Seeking Sweetness & Light in a Democracy Such high appraisal of culture amongst the middle class was a catalyst for political aspirants such as Menzies and Deakin to use it in their ethos with voters. But it also had high appeal with the left, including the Australian Labor Party begun in 1890. Ben Chifley was a prime minister (1945-49) who received little schooling as a child but his attendance 4 nights a week for 15 years at Workers’ Education Association courses and his subscription to Dymocks Library provided him with classics such as Plutarch and Gibbon.11 He was one of the working class which flocked to the mechanic institutes, libraries and art galleries set up in every city and town in emulation of Britain. The ‘old country’ was their source of most books and many journals and newspapers until World War II.12 Many companies had libraries to raise the moral tone of their staff. From the 1920s Australian schools had British norms with a textbook on reading the classics by a professor of English at Cambridge University (“masterpieces” will “teach us to lift our souls”) and textbooks by his Australian emulators.13 The Australian Labor Party founded in 1890 did not reject the connections Mill and Arnold made between class and culture; it inverted them. Instead of the middle class lead the working class, the working class would lead and still have culture. Labor relied on its favourable identification with democracy just as this form of political society was thriving. The ancient Greek concept of rule by the demos or poor uneducated common people shifted its meaning to rule by the working class since they were the

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______________________________________________________________ poor common people making up most of society.14 So there was synonymy of democracy and working class. Since socialism was also about the working class, socialist parties here and elsewhere traded in such synonymy to proclaim themselves as the true exponents of democracy rather than opponents who were branded as representatives of elites. Labor aimed to capture the banner of democracy when there was an expansion of positive social attitudes around the word. That is, democracy is an evaluativedescriptive term like many in our political vocabulary which mix appraisive judgements with descriptive arguments. With increasing favour for the term, it was an advantage for speakers to describe themselves and their actions as democratic15 and the effect was to enhance a speaker’s ethos with an audience. 3.

Menzies, Culture & the Middle Class This is the linguistic context for understanding a famous speech by Menzies in 1942 that sought to capture democracy to his side of politics by claiming the middle-class was the “backbone” to “a dynamic democracy.” He blamed the “maladies of modern democracy” on the rich and the “unthinking and unskilled mass.”16 He flattered the middle class by associating it with the home, family, frugality, readiness to serve and their greater contribution to culture than any other class. At an art exhibition in 1937 Menzies denounced modernism as the intelligent layperson could not understand it. He was condemned but justified himself by claiming “I represent a class of people which will, in the next hundred years determine the permanent place to be occupied in the world of art by those painting today.”17 This is a politician using a representational argument and terms of democratic discourse as justification for what is acceptable in art. It is similar to the argument used by Howard to justify what is acceptable in higher education. Menzies further flattered the middle class by associating it with learning in high schools and universities. He had traditional views of the university as a “civilizing” agent founded on the classics, literature, philosophy and history and therefore defended “so-called useless scholarship” because “it develops the humane and imperishable elements of man.”18 Universities could train for the professions but they also trained leaders and character. He clearly looked to Oxbridge and the Newman tradition and repeatedly took up the cause of education throughout his political career. Yet he often worried that education was viewed as “a preparation for a living and not for a life” and especially worried about the growing importance of technique: Technique is good, but humanity is better. We may become supremely good at our own speciality, and yet have no knowledge of the world or of the people who live in it, or

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______________________________________________________________ of their problems, and none of that spiritual enlightenment which alone can bring a man to his full growth.19 4.

Post-war Higher Education & the Managed Democracy After the war Menzies proudly oversaw an expansion of higher education with 12 universities and 35 colleges of advanced education which were vocationally based. This was necessary for industrialisation20 and we should not romanticise the six pre-war universities.21 However, the irony is that Menzies undermined his own idea of the university. First, there was a proliferation of the specialised areas of education which he feared and which exacerbated the utilitarian and idealist tensions in universities and, second, federal governments were now more concerned to control and intervene in higher education. Such specialisations were connected to the modernisation of Australian capitalism along the lines of an affluent American-style consumer society22 with education in scientific management, marketing, advertising, polling, public relations, etc. These techniques were essential to the new corporate stage of capitalism. Corporations now loomed across Australia as large national monopolies or virtual monopolies in the more integrated national economy23 that secured mass production and mass consumption.24 However, their chiefs complained in the 1950s of a desperate shortage of trained executives due to rapid growth and the lack of university training in management along American lines.25 Technical colleges in Australia carried the burden of management training and the only university involvement was a few brief summer schools from 1957.26 But this was small beer compared to the needs of the economy. Change did come to the universities but there was resistance from university traditionalists. Thus, when a chair of marketing was created at UNSW in 1964, it was greeted with derision.27 These specialised disciplines of consumerism were related to political ideas adopted by the Liberal Party. Such ideas are variously described as ‘managed democracy’ or ‘the politics of productivity’ and are still with us in the administrative view that dominates politics these days. Importantly, they were developed in 1920s America amidst a scare about propaganda during World War I. The linguistic construction explored earlier was updated with Freud and Gustav Le Bon. Intellectuals such as Walter Lippmann and John Dewey thought the alienated masses crammed in the big cities relied on the processed opinions of the new mass media, were driven by the irrational subconscious, emotion, exaggeration and rumour, and were susceptible to propaganda. Rational discussion and thus democracy were subverted. The feeble masses needed the right leadership otherwise democracy was in peril.28 ‘Public opinion’ was even more terrifying and tyrannical in the media age.29 In other words, the linguistic evolution of the concept ‘public opinion’ into the propaganda model amplified the fears of

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______________________________________________________________ these intellectuals for the vulnerability of the masses and the weakness of democracy. Their flawed propaganda model has weakened in the last forty years but its linguistic ruts still determine how we discuss ideas, elites and false consciousness. Their solution was an elite to measure the public and advise governments on the administration of social change and growth. They would provide the scientific rationality and objectivity missing in the irrational citizenry. This is the origin of the behaviourist social sciences that flourished after WWII. Public relations, advertising, marketing, polling, and the new mass media would propagate the new consumer society and the managed democracy where consent was manufactured, communist propaganda propelled and society guided to growth. All conflicts would be dissolved by abundance and by proper civics education. There would be no battles over distribution of wealth or power, society would not be fractured along class, religious or racial lines, and correct attitudes would be maintained. One of the main exports of the Marshall Plan was the idea of the American attitude of mind as the key to prosperity. All the complexities of political economy were dissolved into one simple solution: get the correct attitude.30 These ideas entered the Liberal Party of Australia with its birth in 1944 and explain much of its reaction to communists.31 Liberals thought all industrial troubles, production problems and shortages ensued from a communist strategy to subvert the people and foment world revolution32 rather than from complex economic causes. Their premiss was the common belief that democracies were fragile and propaganda powerful. Since they also reasoned from the premises of the widespread propaganda model, they saw propaganda or public relations (which were terms they used sometimes interchangeably) as the solution, first, to “constantly direct the public mind to the evidence of the world-wide Communist conspiracy”33 and, second, to instil the American attitude of mind in the workers as the way to the consumer society.34 This concern with the correct attitude to productivity was still evident in 2005 with the industrial relations legislation by the Howard government which he justified by claiming “Australia’s economic performance” was linked to “an attitude of mind” and “the most important change” wrought by his Workchoices legislation “would be a cultural one. Change the institutions and over time you change the culture.”35 Howard deplores social engineering in opponents but here state intervention is permissible because he thinks it is a legitimate goal of government. Cold War concerns for correct attitude filtered into desires to promote correct reading. The Australian Women’s Weekly was owned by Frank Packer, who was a member of the Liberal Party and of the rightwing Australian-American Association.36 The AAA and the Weekly promoted the Great Books Club (formed in America by Mortimer Adler) as a counter to communist subversion. So for the next 20 years the Weekly advertised the

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______________________________________________________________ Great Books of the Western World series and introductory essays on great Works of Western Civilisation, in the tradition of Arnold, Durant, and Blakey. By the late sixties, enthusiasm for the classics in the Weekly was waning before the rising interest in popular fiction and non-fiction. It still endorsed the Literary Heritage Collection but now as “a lifetime collection proclaiming your good taste as a decorator and your discernment as a reader.”37 The selling point to the Weekly reader was an ethical appeal appropriate to the consumer society. The books were not tools for selfdiscovery as in the past. A seachange in social attitudes was necessary for the consumer society and this devalued the place of the classics. What person wants lessons in self-denial and restraint when they want to ‘max out’ their credit card? The horror historically associated with the words credit and consumer had to be expunged in order to liberate people’s pockets for hire purchase, lay-by and credit cards. There is a great difference between a society that treasures the saving of string and brown paper bags and a society worries about obesity, between a society that borrows aphorisms from Shakespeare to emphasise its hallowed virtues (‘neither a borrower nor a lender be’) and a society that says ‘Just do it!’ More generally, since the 1960s societies have undergone changes that are not conducive to authority, let alone the reverence demanded for our classics by Melleuish. Moreover, there was a pluralism of inquiry that complicated the tradition of Arnold, Blakey and Durant. From the 1920s behaviouralists scorned political theory, built as it were on Blakely’s ideal, and as their discipline reached its zenith in the 1950s, political theory reached its nadir. They spoke approvingly of its death. In the 1960s there was a reaction to behavourialism from Charles Taylor and others interested in the so-called linguistic turn and scorning the idea of a social science based on the natural sciences. Political theory revived but its study was being turned upside down by Quentin Skinner, John Pocock, John Dunn, John Gunnell, Conal Condren and others who were not post-structuralists but in fact early modern historians with an interest in the linguistic contexts of the periods they examined. Therefore, they disputed the canonical idea that the political theory classics were only concerned with a few universal timeless issues. Moreover, early modern history pioneered methods such as relationships of gender, statistical methods, demography, anthropological categories and semiotics which are now taken for granted by historians of other areas but which moved historical study away from traditional whig or Marxist foci. Such early modern history flourished in Australian universities in 1970s and 80s.38 So it is hard to take seriously the claims from the right that the postmodernist left are undermining traditional education. Post-war social changes have done a far more lethal job in that regard. And it is with this in mind that I turn to Howard.

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______________________________________________________________ 5.

Howard & the Culture Wars He is typical of his time. He is a lawyer from a more technocratic corporate era who has evinced no public interest in the classics and every interest in the growth of the consumer society. By all accounts, he reads history, not the classics and never uses them in his speeches. Howard’s demand for Shakespeare in schools has more to do with conscription of the classics in the culture wars against the left and little to do with his knowledge of the bard. It suited his ethical appeal to voters and calls for unity. He claims a cultural elite occupies the universities, the arts, the media and the ALP and propagates its politically-correct, post-modern, relativist beliefs to the detriment of mainstream Australians who have their champion in Howard. This elite is the cultural establishment who are against the true Australian culture of the mainstream who are assumed to be good because they are deemed the majority of democracy. It is the representational argument noted earlier but now applied to knowledge rather than art. In prominent speeches in 2006 he upheld traditional education and attacked the politically-correct “postmodern culture of relativism” which denied objectivity39 and which hold “sway in schools and universities.” It dominates the humanities generally and history in particular. Thus, Australian history has suffered in our schools. He wants history told as a nation-building narrative. Consequently, Howard organised a conference last year to gain a consensus for this desire and chose a favourite in Greg Melleuish to set the tone with the lead paper. The irony is that Australian history was not taught much in our schools before the 1960s. Howard’s stand on values and history is mixed in one speech with the attack on the West by Islamist terrorists.40 Resolute defence of absolute values is needed against them just as it is needed against postmodernists if we are to withstand such assaults, which echoes many Cold War ideas. Melleuish has attacked postmodernism and the New Humanities for dominating universities, grants committees and government committees to the exclusion of “traditional scholars.” Thus he damned Gadamer and Heidegger as fascists,41 which is an ad hominem that neatly sidesteps questions of interpretation, epistemology and the history of hermeneutics since Dilthey. Similar views have been uttered by ministers such as Tony Abbott.42 Education minister Julie Bishop referred, in a released version of a speech, to Maoists who control national educational curricula. They are at one with Howard who said: “we should not underestimate the degree to which the soft-left still holds sway, even dominance, especially in Australia’s universities, by virtue of its long march through the institutions.”43 One strand of intellectual life is not only extended to all humanities departments but to all facets of all universities. The phrase “long march through the institutions” is crucial as it shows Howard is getting his ideas from Kevin Donnelly who leads the Liberal Party charge on education and is

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______________________________________________________________ the author of Why Our Schools Are Failing, which is distributed by a Liberal Party think-tank. Donnelly quotes the phrase from a book about Gramsci which is being recycled through rightwing circles in Australia and the United States as proof of the intentions of leftwing academics. Donnelly advocates Arnold’s ideal of “sweetness and light” just as Melleuish wishes for “the humility that comes from being in the presence of great works.”44 But we have seen how complex post-war social changes rather than the left have undermined such ideals. Donnelly also wrote that: “left-wing academics, teacher unions and sympathetic governments have all conspired to use the education system to attack the so-called capitalist system and to indoctrinate students with their left-wing ideology.”45 It is significant that Donnelly used the word indoctrinate. One can only believe this is possible if one actually believes that Gramscian theories are plausible. Yet the leftwing book The Dominant Ideology Thesis in 1980 debunked use of cultural hegemony to denote incorporation of the subordinate classes by the ideas of a ruling class. More particularly, the right have latched on to something in Gramsci’s work because they find their own beliefs in false consciousness. For there is a tension in the Italian’s theories between his liberal education and his Marxism, between human liberation, free intellectual inquiry, self-determination, and engagement with the beliefs of the masses and, on the other hand, his philosophy of praxis demanding an elite which knows better than the masses of a conception of life more worthy than bourgeois illusion. He was caught in the debates of the time about elites, manipulation, ignorance and mass culture,46 just like his American contemporaries. Many on the left and right are still in the linguistic ruts of the propaganda model set after the Great War which put great store on right leadership with correct ideas or else fear the passive masses will be led astray. Professor David Flint – a member of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and a fierce supporter of Howard – argued that the cultural elite pursued its agenda “during the past three decades without the consent of the people and even against their wishes.” The violence, crime and depravity of a growing underclass and other social problems are “the result of the ideas that have filtered down from our elites”, even though the agenda was against their “wishes” and “consent.” The ideas of Labor prime minister Paul Keating (who was defeated by Howard in 1996) were merely an attempt to “seduce” disgruntled Labor voters. He feared this elite would “engineer a return to their essentially surreptitious guardianship of our great nation” if Labor was victorious in the 2004 election, and so sweep away all that had been achieved. He favourably quoted Edmund Burke and The Revolt of the Elites by Christopher Lasch.47 This book has been at the forefront of rightwing criticisms of cultural elites in Australia and the US and is a favourite of Howard.

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______________________________________________________________ Curiously, Flint adopted Tocqueville’s warning about democracies being dominated by guardians rather than tyrants. One can only make such a statement if one thinks democracies are at such risk and sign up to de Tocqueville’s scepticism of public opinion. It seems that the only way to explain the success of the elites is with the hoary, old chestnuts of propaganda or demagoguery. Sir David Smith, who was the Official Secretary to five governors-general and a monarchist with Flint, believes that: Australians are abysmally ignorant of just how they are governed or what their Constitution says and means. This lack of knowledge on the part of the electorate has enabled republicans to misrepresent our present Constitution and to deceive and mislead the Australian people about the changes they wish to make to it.48 They are so abysmally ignorant that a majority rejected the republican model proposed in the 1999 referendum, thus providing the very result Smith wanted. There is a danger in governments taking the flawed propaganda model so seriously in these days of the rationalist state. It can lead governments of either political persuasion into wanting to eliminate the wicked knowledge they perceive in others. The Howard government has intruded into more and more areas in order to attain its objectives of privatisation, contracting of government services, labour market reform, and introduction of market relations to more of society. Now such micromanagement has entered our schools and universities and it is likely to go further with the desire to correct inappropriate knowledge. There is greater danger to the humanities and therefore to the classics in the government’s cutbacks in spending on universities and the diversion of some of what is left to private vocational education providers.49 This is accelerating post-war trends in higher education and has a knock-on effect through the various levels, especially when vice-chancellors like that at UNSW place the humanities second to professional education.50 The impressive array of early modern scholars at University of Sydney was devastated by management. They were members of a discipline doing interesting work with the beginnings of modern Western culture that Howard espouses but does not understand. The Howard government is not a conservative government wary of intervention that might upset the traditional structures of society. In fact, it is the sort of rationalist state that horrified British conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott almost sixty years ago.51 Howard is not a conservative, is not upholding the traditional education that he claims and is very different to Robert Menzies.

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Notes 1. E. Corbett & R. Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 1999, p.71. 2. For example, see his quotation of Pope in ‘Democracy and Management’, in Speech is of Time, Accessed 24/2/2007. http://www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/transcripts/Speech_is_of_Time/40 2_Dem_Mngt.html. 3. J. Reynolds, Edmund Barton, Bookman, Melbourne, 1999, pp.31-2. 4. G. Melleuish, ‘A World Without the Humanities?’, Quadrant, April 2005 Volume XLIX Number 4. 5. Mill opens the famous book On Liberty thus: “The subject of this Essay is…the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual” and later in the same chapter states: “The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion.” Accessed 31 July 2007. http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645o/chapter1.html. 6. M. Francis & J. Morrow, A History of English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1994, chapter 7, pp.250-1. 7. J.A.W. Gunn, ‘Public Opinion’, Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, T. Ball, J. Farr & R. Hanson (eds), Cambridge University Press, New York, 1989, p.255-262. 8. M. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, edited by J. Dover Wilson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1932, chapters 1 & 2, esp. p.6. 9. J. Rubin, The Making of Middle Brow Culture, 1992, chapter 1. 10. C. Condren, The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts, Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J., 1985, pp.60-61. 11. D. Day, Chifley, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2001, p.39; L. Crisp, Ben Chifley, Longmans, London, 1961, p.6. 12. G.Serle, From Deserts The Prophets Come, pp.26-30; M.Lyons, ‘Britain’s Largest Export Market’, in M. Lyons & J. Arnold, A History of the Book in Australia 1891-1945. 13. P. Buckridge, ‘‘Serious Reading’ Between the Wars’, in A History of the Book in Australia 1891-1945, M. Lyons & J. Arnold (eds), University of Queensland Press, 2001, St.Lucia Qld, pp.326-9. 14. R. Hanson, ‘Democracy’ in Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, op. cit. 15. M. Saward, Democracy, Polity, Cambridge, 2003, p.3

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______________________________________________________________ 16. R. Menzies, ‘The Forgotten People’, chapter 1, The Forgotten People And Other Studies in Democracy, Accessed 24/2/2007 http://www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/transcripts/ForgottenPeople/Forgot ten1.html. 17. G. Serle, From Deserts The Prophets Come, William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1973, p.162-3; A. Martin, Robert Menzies A Life 18941943, vol.1, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, pp.196-199. 18. B. Bessant, Robert Menzies and Education in Australia’, in Melbourne Studies in Education, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1977, pp.7780. 19. R. Menzies, ‘Freedom in Modern Society’, in Speech is of Time, Accessed 24/2/2007, http://www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/transcripts/Speech_is_of_Time/40 3_Freedom.html. 20. Some universities were begun by state governments as universities of technology, such as University of New South Wales (P. O’Farrell, UNSW: a portrait : the University of New South Wales, 1949 - 1999, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1999, p.15). 21. They were isolated, small, staid, cautious, uniform and British institutions, somewhat caught between utilitarian and idealist visions, and with little research and postgraduate teaching, says P. Partridge in Society, Schools and Progress in Australia, Pergamon Press Australia, Sydney, 1973, pp.122, 127. 22. M. Rolfe, ‘Faraway Fordism: The Americanization of Australia and New Zealand During the 1950s and 1960s’, in New Zealand Journal of History, vol.33, no.1, 1999. 23. By 1957 the 14 firms that were 'large national monopolies' or 'virtual monopolies' included BHP, CSR, ICIANZ, ACI, Broken Hill Associated Smelters, Australian New sprint Mills, Australian Paper Manufacturers, and APPM. By that year highly and fairly concentrated industries accounted for 51% of the labour force. By that same year 31 large highly concentrated industries were identified, for most of those Fordist industries mentioned above (N.G. Butlin, A. Barnard & J.J. Pincus, Government and Capitalism, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1982, p.108; E. Boehm, Twentieth Century Economic Development in Australia, 2nd edition, Longman Australia, Melbourne, 1979, p.177). 24. M. Aglietta, A Theory of Capitalist Regulation, NLB, London, 1979, chapter 4. Compared to Butlin, Barnard & Pincus who saw their growth happening in response to greater control by the state at the Federal level (Op. cit, p.108). 25. There was Sir John Allison of Permewan Wright who was also a vicepresident of AIM in Melbourne and a chairman of one of the university summer schools (AF, 11th November 1957, p.40). The situation caused a

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______________________________________________________________ flurry of articles in the October to December issues of Australian Factory by Norman Dufty, head of the Department of Management Studies at Perth Technical College, Copland, Professor F.J. Clark of the Applied Psychology Department at the NSW University of Technology (now UNSW), W.C. Pacey, head of School and State Supervisor, School of Management, NSW Dept of Technical Education, W.J.A. Smith, head of the School of Management at RMIT, J. Edwards, chairman of Reckitt & Colman. The problem caused many corporations to send their executives overseas for training. Email sent to Westinghouse in America (Manufacturing & Management [M&M], 15th February 1954, pp.278-281). Nestle sent their men to AIM, the summer schools and the staff colleges as well as to Switzerland (AF, 1st December 1958, p.5). GMH, Ford and Vacuum sent their executives to the US (M&M, 15th March 1954, p.324; 15th June 1954, p.429; AF, 17th November 1956, p.61). In 1954 Vacuum's training involved 100 positions in marketing, engineering, distribution, personnel, purchasing and research for some 200 people (M&M, 15th October 1954, p.107). 26. Australian Factory [AF], 1st October 1958, pp.17-18; AF, 11th November 1957, p.14; M&M, 15th December 1955, p.173; M&M, 11th February 1957, p.270; M&M, 10th September 1956, p.69. 27. O’Farrell, UNSW, op. cit., p.120. 28. J. Michael Sproule, Propaganda and democracy: the American experience of media and mass persuasion, Cambridge University Press New York, 1997, p.33. See p.30-50 for this overview. 29. See Lippmann’s views of public opinion and its flawed use of stereotypes in Public Opinion MacMillan, New York, 1947, chapter 1 & 6 but particularly pp.75, 80, 87, 95, 100. 30. A. Carew, Labour Under The Marshall Plan, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1987, p.3, 134. 31. M. Rolfe, ‘The Promise and Threat of America in Australian Politics’, in Australian Journal of Political Science, vol.32, no.2, 1997, p.189-190, 193-4. 32. Research Bulletin - A Century of Trade Unionism, 6th October 1949, NSW Research Section, p.8, Liberal Party of Australia (NSW) Records, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. See Richard Casey’s comments on communists and inflation in 27th February 1951, National Library of Australia MS6150, Box 26, Series 4, vol.14. 33. Political Appreciation - 1951, LPA(NSW) Records, p.6. 34. See ‘Triumph - or Disaster!’ in IPA Review, vol.III,no.1,Jan-Feb. 1949, p.14. The Institute of Public Affairs was a think-tank instrumental in the formation of the Liberal Party. 35. Transcript Of The Prime Minister The Hon John Howard MP Address To The Sydney Institute, Workplace Relations Reform: The Next Logical Step, Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney, 11 July 2005. Accessed 10 October 2006. http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech1455.html.

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______________________________________________________________ 36. D. Kent, History of the Australian-American Association, unpublished honours thesis, University of Sydney, 1980, p.71. 37. P. Buckridge, ‘Case–study: The Women’s Weekly and ‘Good Reading’’, in Paper Empires: a history of the Book in Australia 1946-2005, Craig Munro & Robyn Sheahan-Brighton (eds), University of Queensland Press, St.Lucia Qld, 2006, p.366-8. 38. See C. Condren, ‘English Historiographical Revisionism, ‘Cambridge School’ Intellectual History: Some Aspects of the Problem of Contextualisation’, International Journal of Public Affairs, vol.2, 2006; C. Condren, Civil War England, and the study of the early modern in Australia: The pig, the owl and the bumble-bee: A tale of two Discrepancies, Cultural Translations: Remaking the Early European Past in Australasia, University of Melbourne, November 2006. 39. Transcript Of The Prime Minister, The Hon John Howard MP, Address To The National Press Club, Great Hall, Parliament House, 25 January 2006, http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Speech/2006/speech1754.cfm. Accessed 19 March 2007. 40. Transcript Of The Prime Minister, The Hon John Howard MP, Address To The Quadrant Magazine 50th Anniversary Dinner, Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney, 4 October 2006, http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Speech/2006/speech2165.cfm. Accessed 19 March 2007. See also ‘John Howard: Standard bearer in liberal culture’, The Australian, 4 October 2006. 41. G. Melleuish, ‘A World Without the Humanities?’, Quadrant, April 2005 - Volume XLIX Number 4. 42. T. Abbott, ‘Which Workers’ Party?’, Monday, 16 August 2004, Speech Notes For Sir Phillip Lynch Memorial Lecture, Melbourne, Accessed 1 December 2006. http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/news/default.asp?action=article&ID=89&Wor kDate=1-Aug-2004&Archived=true. 43. Transcript Of The Prime Minister, The Hon John Howard MP, Address To The Quadrant Magazine 50th Anniversary Dinner, Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney, 4 October 2006, http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Speech/2006/speech2165.cfm. Accessed 19 March 2007. See also ‘John Howard: Standard bearer in liberal culture’, The Australian, 4 October 2006. 44. G. Melleuish, ‘A World Without the Humanities?’, Quadrant, April 2005 - Volume XLIX Number 4. 45. See K. Donnelly, Why Our Schools Are Failing, p.124, Accessed 24/2/2007. http://www.mrcltd.org.au/uploaded_documents/Schools_123174.pdf. The book on the left’s Gramscian intentions is S. Aronowitz, & H. Giroux, Education Under Siege, Massachusetts, Bergin and Garvey Publishers, 1985.

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______________________________________________________________ 46. J. Femia, Gramsci’s Political Thought, Clarendon, Oxford, 1981, p.175187. 47. David Flint, ‘To these thought police, mainstream is a dirty word’, The Australian, 25 August 2003. 48. Sir David Smith, ‘What a nice Referendum – Pity about the Debate’, Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of The Samuel Griffith Society, Rydges Carlton Hotel, Melbourne, 9 - 11 July, 1999, p.38. Accessed 28/7/07. http://www.fergco.com/~samgriffith/papers/pdf/Vol11.pdf. 49. G.Davis, ‘Do Public Universities Have a Future?’, The Journal for the Public University, volume 3, 2006, Accessed 13 December 2006. http://www.publicuni.org/jrnl/volume/3/JPU3_Davis_06.pdf. 50. L. Slattery, ‘Hilmer puts UNSW to the test’, Australian Financial Review, 4 December 2006. 51. M. Oakeshott, "Rationalism in Politics" in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, Methuen, London, 1967.

Bibliography Abbott, T., ‘Which Workers’ Party?’, Monday. 16 August 2004. Speech Notes For Sir Phillip Lynch Memorial Lecture. Melbourne. Accessed 1 December 2006.
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______________________________________________________________ Casey, R., National Library of Australia MS6150, Box 26, Series 4, vol.14. Condren, C., Civil War England, and the study of the early modern in Australia: The pig, the owl and the bumble-bee: A tale of two Discrepancies, Cultural Translations: Remaking the Early European Past in Australasia, University of Melbourne, November 2006. Condren, C., ‘English Historiographical Revisionism, ‘Cambridge School’ Intellectual History: Some Aspects of the Problem of Contextualisation’. International Journal of Public Affairs, vol.2, 2006 Corbett E. & R. Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 1999. Crisp, L., Ben Chifley. Longmans, London, 1961 Davis, G., ‘Do Public Universities Have a Future?’. The Journal for the Public University, volume 3, 2006, Accessed 13 December 2006. http://www.publicuni.org/jrnl/volume/3/JPU3_Davis_06.pdf. Day, D., Chifley. Harper Collins, Sydney, 2001. Donnelly, K., Why Our Schools Are Failing, p.124, Accessed 24/2/2007. http://www.mrcltd.org.au/uploaded_documents/Schools_123-174.pdf. Flint, D., ‘To these thought police, mainstream is a dirty word’. The Australian, 25 August 2003 Francis, M., & J.Morrow, A History of English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century. St Martin’s Press, New York, 1994. Gunn, J., ‘Public Opinion’, Political Innovation and Conceptual Change. T. Ball, J.Farr & R. Hanson (eds), Cambridge University Press, New York, 1989. Hanson, R., ‘Democracy’, Political Innovation and Conceptual Change. T. Ball, J.Farr & R. Hanson (eds), Cambridge University Press, New York, 1989, Hogan, M., The Marshall Plan. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1987. Howard, J., Transcript Of The Prime Minister The Hon John Howard MP Address To The Sydney Institute, Workplace Relations Reform: The Next Logical Step, Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney, 11 July 2005. Accessed 10 October 2006. http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech1455.html. Howard, J., Transcript Of The Prime Minister, The Hon John Howard MP, Address To The Quadrant Magazine 50th Anniversary Dinner, Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney, 3 October 2006, Accessed 30 November 2006. http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech2165.html. Howard, J., Transcript Of The Prime Minister, The Hon John Howard MP, Address To The National Press Club, Great Hall, Parliament House, 25 January 2006, Accessed 30 November 2006. http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech1754.html.

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______________________________________________________________ Kent, D., History of the Australian-American Association. unpublished honours thesis, University of Sydney, 1980. Liberal Party of Australia (NSW) Records, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney Lippmann, W., Public Opinion, MacMillan, New York, 1947. Maier, C., ‘The politics of productivity: foundations of American international economic policy after World War II’, in International Organisation, vol.31, 1977. Martin, A., Robert Menzies A Life 1894-1943. vol.1, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne Melleuish, G., ‘A World Without the Humanities?’, Quadrant, April 2005 Volume XLIX Number 4. Menzies, R., Speech is of Time. Accessed 24/2/2007 http://www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/transcripts/Speech_is_of_Ti me. Menzies, R., The Forgotten People And Other Studies in Democracy. Accessed 24/2/2007 http://www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/transcripts/ForgottenPeople/ Forgotten1.html. Mill, J.S., On Liberty. Accessed 31 July 2007, (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645o/chapter 1.html) Oakeshott, M., "Rationalism in Politics", Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Methuen, London, 1967. Partridge, P., Society, Schools and Progress in Australia. Pergamon Press Australia, Sydney, 1973 Peatling, S.‘Democracy Taken for Granted: GG’. Sydney Morning Herald, 27th January 2005 Reynolds, J., Edmund Barton, Bookman, Melbourne, 1999 Rolfe, M., ‘The Promise and Threat of America in Australian Politics’, in Australian Journal of Political Science, vol.32, no.2, 1997 Rolfe, M., ‘Faraway Fordism: The Americanization of Australia and New Zealand During the 1950s and 1960s’, in New Zealand Journal of History, vol33, no.1, 1999. Rubin, J., The Making of Middle Brow Culture. 1992 Sartori, G., The theory of democracy revisited. Chatham House Publishers, Chatham, 1987 Saward, M., Democracy. Polity, Cambridge, 2003 Serle, G., From Deserts The Prophets Come. William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne, 1973. Slattery, L., ‘Hilmer puts UNSW to the test’. Australian Financial Review, 4 December 2006.

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______________________________________________________________ Smith, D., ‘What a nice Referendum – Pity about the Debate’. Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of The Samuel Griffith Society, Rydges Carlton Hotel, Melbourne, 9 - 11 July, 1999 Sproule, J. Michael, Propaganda and democracy: the American experience of media and mass persuasion. Cambridge University Press New York, 1997.

The Mutation of Economics Matthew Steen Economics has evolved over four centuries from a broad social science, explicitly directed towards progressive aims, into a narrow and increasingly arbitrary stock of formal techniques. Paradoxically, greater analytic refinement has been accompanied by growing doubts about the relevance of economics and the steady effusion of students to related disciplines like business and finance. This trend can be attributed to the decline of macroeconomic policy activism since the 1970s, as well as to the persistent refusal of the majority of economists to reappraise their “scientific research programme.” The degeneration of a reflective discipline means that fundamental issues of economic development and income distribution are seldom examined systemically or critically in mainstream fora. Conversely, the regeneration of a self-conscious community of economists is unlikely to occur without substantial sociopolitical changes, or the institution of a more liberal pedagogy. Keywords: Capitalism, economics, economists, ideology, policy activism, scientific research programme, techniques of analysis.

1. Introduction Economics differs from other fields of knowledge, in that it is exclusively concerned with the instrumental aspects of human life. Whatever the motive behind economic behaviour, its meaning is always the satisfaction of wants.1 And while a pragmatic rationality underlies economic action in every age and society, capitalism developed and augmented this rationality by turning money into a unit of account and then spreading cost-profit reasoning to all spheres of thought and activity.2 Just as capitalism broke up the feudal manor and village, so economic thought escaped the confines of religious scholasticism and its teleological preoccupations. Debates over “just price” and usury were superceded by efforts to grasp the new economic system and to enhance the common wealth. “Political economy,” or the analysis of national prosperity, was the discipline that emerged; and as historical studies of production were joined by mathematical models of exchange, the discipline became known as “economics.” Clearly, both the subject-matter and heritage of the economics discipline have conditioned economists against pursuing knowledge for its own sake. While most economists are, naturally, intellectually fascinated by questions related to social production, consumption, distribution and

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______________________________________________________________ exchange, they have traditionally judged the effectiveness of economic analysis in terms of its usefulness to wealth creation. Indeed, the material welfare of the public depends to a remarkable extent on the ideas of economists and their transformation into ideological practices.3 Thus, Paul Samuelson could plausibly announce to new students of the discipline that the “mental constructs” of economists “really do have a life and death significance for billions of souls all over the world” and that the latter look to economists to shield them from the “unpleasant and debilitating” phenomena of economic life.4 Yet in recent decades, something paradoxical has occurred. The core of the discipline has turned its back on its instrumental past, putting aside problems of poverty and instability in favour of solving ever more elaborate and abstract mathematical puzzles. Of course, the capitalist system continues to operate and expand without any reformist policies, and its institutions are full of competent economists who help to keep the system going. Nevertheless, governments and the public are increasingly viewing economics as useless or absurd,5 and the number of students enrolling in economics (in Australia at least) has been falling steadily since the 1990s.6 The seeming irrelevance of modern economics has confirmed a long-standing public suspicion that economists have little comprehension of social complexity or any sympathy for activities not driven by hedonistic calculation. But the frustration of the public is also an acknowledgement that the application and refinement of economic knowledge is vital to their material being. As Margaret Moussa strikingly puts it: It is unnerving that a profession should so flourish in power when its wellspring, its intelligent soul is dying. It is unnerving that a profession should be so loathed and yet so depended on. There is something quite jarring in the populist catch-cry: ‘Economics is far too important to be left to the economists.’ To whom should it be, to whom shall it be left? If public policy is to be explicable and accountable, then we cannot coffin the intellectual pursuit of economics as we have the classics or the Latin Mass. If there is a crisis in economics, it is essentially a crisis in the substantive rationality of civil life. It is a crisis in democracy.7 This chapter places the recent degeneration of economics in the context of its historical development. I argue that economics is of necessity a progressive and broad discipline, and that its confinement to arcane mathematics is an aberration. The causes of this deleterious mutation are held to be the institution of fatalistic macroeconomic policies and the commitment of a

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______________________________________________________________ majority of economists to a “degenerative scientific research programme.” Finally, the prospects for the regeneration of economics are briefly considered. 2.

The Beneficial Tradition of Economics: Progressive Aims and Diverse Techniques The emergence of economics as a distinct, secular discipline can be traced to Western Europe in the early seventeenth century. By this stage, the disintegration of small-scale, feudal production and the expansion of international commerce had allowed for the transfer of titles to wealth into the hands of a minority, and hence the undertaking of large-scale investments and the predominance of capitalist production. Consequently, merchants and statesmen began to perceive capital and profit as central to the accumulation of national wealth, and sought the means by which the state could preserve or augment the reproduction of an economic surplus. With the further development of capitalist industry and a propertyless class of workers, thinkers attributed the causes of wealth ever less to the bounty of nature and speculative trading, and ever more to extensions to the technical division of labour and the growth of markets through trade.8 Thus, the discipline of economics arose with attempts to understand and facilitate a new economic system, one defined by commodity production for profit and a tendency towards rapid and deep advances in productive techniques. Accordingly, in promoting this system (or elements thereof) economists saw themselves as champions of progress and the public good. And while the politics of economists have differed markedly, all have been concerned with enhancing the creativity and comfort of (at least) their compatriots and (often) humanity in general. As Mark Blaug states: “All the great economists, without a single exception, were motivated to study economics to improve the world.”9 The materially progressive character of economics is manifest in the various objectives of the discipline that have prevailed over time. For instance, apprehending and facilitating the growth of national wealth was the common and express concern of the mercantilists (1609–1767), the French Physiocrats (1756-78) and the classical economists (1776-1850). More elaborately, Karl Marx (1818-83) conceived “scientific” economics as insight into the unobservable but essential relations of capitalist production; and he argued that analytic progress lay in grasping the immanent evolution of capitalism into a more humane and sustainable economic system.10 Similarly, marginalist economists like Knut Wicksell (1851-1926) regarded “the practical and social duty of political economy” as identifying that “manner of satisfying human needs that gives the greatest possible satisfaction to society as a whole,” including future generations.11 Again, Lord Keynes (1883-1946) formulated his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money with a

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______________________________________________________________ view to correcting the two “outstanding faults” of capitalism; namely, “its failure to provide full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.”12 Traditionally, economists’ enthusiasm for a growing technical division of labour has found its complement in their increasing analytic division of labour. Thus, by the mid-twentieth century, Schumpeter was able to distinguish between four fundamental techniques of what he called economic analysis: x

x x

x

economic history, which encompasses contemporary and institutional facts, as well as the knowledge and techniques of specialized historical fields; statistics, which includes series of quantitative data and the latest statistical and econometric methods; theory, that is, all the tools that enable the economist to construct simplifying representations of reality (e.g., useful assumptions, instrumental theorems, concepts, relations between concepts and ways of managing these relations); and economic sociology (Wirtschaftssoziologie), or the explanation of social actions, motives, tendencies and institutions that affect the satisfaction of material wants.13

While both Schumpeter’s idea and exposition of economic analysis have met with strong criticism, the classification he puts forward highlights the complexity of economic phenomena and the consequent need of the discipline to draw on a diverse range of methods and specializations. By implication, no single economist or school of economic thought can feasibly uphold a particular analytic approach as essentially more correct or interesting than another.14 Rather, a constructive appraisal of a given piece of analysis will ultimately amount to judgments about its empirico-logical consistency and its adequacy to the analyst’s purpose.15 For most of its history, the discipline of economics has accommodated both quantitative and qualitative techniques. The recurrent and measurable aspects of economic behaviour make it amenable to mathematics; and the widespread application of the latter has differentiated economics from other social sciences. In the early 1670s, Sir William Petty declared that he aimed to avoid “using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments” and instead “to express my self in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature.”16 Similar sentiments were expressed by Wicksell and Paul Samuelson, who both worked hard to render economics a quantitative science. Yet

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______________________________________________________________ neither of these great economists ever suggested that mathematics was the only legitimate form of analysis. Wicksell declared that the German Historical School “has enriched political economy by much extremely valuable research” and warned that “the mathematical method affords no absolute guarantee against false deductions.”17 Both descriptive and formal techniques can only claim an approximate validity, even if the latter has the advantage of being logically transparent and able to falsify wrong opinions.18 Likewise, Paul Samuelson, who pioneered rigorous (and therefore closed) predictive models, nonetheless emphasized the interdisciplinary nature of economics, especially its reliance on recorded history.19 Quite apart from certain economists’ anxiety to make economics a “hard” science, quantification and prediction are central to its contribution to public policymaking.20 Of course, any adequate representation of economic behaviour must acknowledge that it does not occur in a closed logical system of its own, but rather is enmeshed in “non-economic” social structures that are evolving in irreversible historical time.21 To construct formal models or theories is therefore to risk abstracting from essential phenomena.22 In light of this, some economists have preferred historical and sociological techniques to quantitative analysis. For instance, Thorstein Veblen contended that the methods suitable to economic inquiry are closer to those of anthropology than mechanics.23 In addition, Schumpeter reckoned economic history to be the least dispensable component of economic analysis,24 and Blaug reasons that “history is just as much a test of patterns and trends in economic events as is regression analysis.”25 Yet while the tension between quantitative and qualitative techniques in economics has mostly been creative, the history of the discipline has not been without methodological discord. Perhaps the most notorious example is the protracted ‘Strife over Economic Methods’ (Methodenstreit der Nationalökonomie) between the conservative German Historical School, led by Lord Schmoller, and liberal Austrian subjectivists, led by Carl Menger. Nevertheless, this bitter controversy did not end in victory for either descriptive or formal analysis; it simply petered out.26 It is only in recent times that one type of technique has been elevated to the exclusion of all others. 3.

The Deleterious Mutation of Economics: Policy Irrelevance and Vitiated Analyses Anyone familiar with modern economics knows that it is obsessed with the mathematical modelling of exchanges between egoistic, optimizing agents situated in logical time. Little or no mention is made of the fact that a system based on private commodity production is historically specific, that it is characterized by uncertainty and turbulence, or that it is shaped by institutions and values that are themselves subject to continual change. While

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______________________________________________________________ estimable heterodox economists have long since exposed the inadequacy of core mainstream analyses,27 orthodox luminaries are now expressing alarm. Mark Blaug offers an arresting summary of the crisis: Modern economics is sick. Economics has increasingly become an intellectual game played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences for understanding the economic world. Economists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigour is everything and practical relevance is nothing. To pick up a copy of The American Economic Review or The Economic Journal these days is to wonder whether one has landed on a strange planet in which tedium is the deliberate objective of professional publication. Economics was once condemned as ‘the dismal science’ but the dismal science of yesterday was a lot less dismal than the soporific scholasticism of today.28 Accompanying the lapse of economics into what the late Milton Friedman called “an arcane branch of mathematics” has been a weakening of explanatory power, a poor record of prediction, frequent anomalies and methodological inconsistency – all by the standards of orthodoxy itself.29 What can account for this deleterious mutation of economics? There appear to be two main causes: 1.

2.

the demise of macroeconomic policy activism, and hence diminished demand by governments for systematic, empirically plausible representations of economic behaviour in the aggregate; and a widespread adherence to a “degenerative scientific research programme,” which yields outcomes that are all but useless to policymakers or business people.

The rise and fall of macroeconomic policy activism is well documented, if not well understood. Following the misery and turmoil of the Great Depression, World War Two and the Holocaust, bourgeois governments resolved to reform the capitalist system and thereby secure the capitalist order against communism.30 In order to facilitate full employment and post-war reconstruction, bourgeois nations (under the aegis of Lord Keynes) ratified the Bretton-Woods Agreement 1945. This Agreement instituted a system of fixed (but adjustable) exchange rates, with the US dollar serving as the reserve currency and pegged to gold. The Agreement also established the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was explicitly forbidden to

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______________________________________________________________ finance cross-border capital flows other than those required for trade, banking or other routine business.31 These developments corresponded with the ascendance of Keynesian economics in government and academia. Lord Keynes’s General Theory was refashioned and grafted on to existing microeconomic theory, in a compromise that Paul Samuelson later proclaimed as the “neoclassical synthesis” and Joan Robinson tellingly dubbed “bastard Keynesianism.” From 1945 to 1973, capitalist economies enjoyed near-full employment with steady growth. However, the post-war settlement came under increasing strain, as confidence in the US dollar was undermined by the persistently large US current account deficits required for German and Japanese reconstruction, as well as Cold-War armaments. By the 1960s, the USA had ceased to be the dominant creditor nation, and its sustained fiscal expansion (undertaken to stimulate domestic growth and to prosecute the Vietnam War) resulted in large capital outflows and international financial instability. In 1971, West Germany floated the Deutschmark and US President Nixon decided to abandon gold convertibility. By 1974, Canada, West Germany, Switzerland and the USA had lifted all restrictions on crossborder capital movements. Other capitalist economies soon followed suit. The institutional framework of Keynesianism had collapsed.32 In the absence of the Bretton-Woods Agreement, exchange-rate risk was now borne by the private sector and significant gains could be made through arbitrage and speculation. The consequent volatility of short-term capital flows hindered Keynesian demand management, and the subsequent oil price shocks and “stagflation” (simultaneous stagnation and high inflation) prompted governments to give up full employment as a primary goal. Not surprisingly, the monetarism of Milton Friedman (which attributed inflation to government-induced increases in the nominal money supply) came to be preferred to Keynesianism. Unfortunately, Friedman’s prescription of targeting monetary aggregates caused violent swings in rates of interest and currency exchange, which in turn accelerated the development of a global market in sophisticated financial instruments.33 The monetarist experiment was short-lived; yet it enshrined a policy preference for low inflation near the so-called non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU), as well as a reliance on monetary policy to manage aggregate demand and respond to supply shocks. Additionally, the influence and mass psychology of cross-border financial agents is such that a nation which pursues “unsound” policies (notably fiscal expansion) can expect to be “punished” with a loss of liquidity and higher real rates of interest, as wealth holders unload assets denominated in that nation’s currency.34 The systemic shift away from macroeconomic policy activism helps to explain the fragmented and limited nature of much contemporary analysis.

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______________________________________________________________ Central banks, not treasuries, are now charged with conditioning aggregate growth and income distribution; and they do so through generating more or less unemployment with one, blunt instrument: the short-term nominal rate of interest.35 There is no longer any demand for economists continually to estimate the level of government spending necessary to attain full employment or a certain rate of growth. Good fiscal policy is instead conceived simply as the achievement of a balanced or surplus budget across the business cycle, preferably by cutting expenditure than raising taxes.36 Indeed, there seems little for macroeconomists to do except offer conjectures about the value of the ever-shifting NAIRU and explain deviations from the postulated long-run equilibrium growth path of the economy (which is assumed to be a function of atomistic preferences and technology and to be independent of current policy). Accordingly, there is much more incentive for economists to become financial or industry specialists than to survey capitalist growth and development in toto.37 But if generalist economists play little role in fiscal or monetary policy, there are signs they are influencing national industry policy. When governments are constrained (or restrain themselves) from undertaking expansionary macroeconomic policy, the remaining way to boost aggregate demand is to encourage exportation and/or foreign direct investment (FDI). This is the approach of Michael Porter’s theory of “national competitive advantage” and Robert Reich’s theory of “global webs of enterprise,” both of which have gained considerable currency amongst policymakers. Porter connects large flows of national income to continuous export surpluses and outward FDI, which in turn depend upon the “choice” of governments to foster nationally based, high-productivity industries.38 Even though Reich similarly associates national wealth with the hosting of high value-adding activities, he insists that national industries and national accounting have been rendered obsolete by the transnational integration of production. Therefore, the best option for governments, he says, is to encourage their residents to become “symbolic analysts” who can identify and solve problems for local firms enmeshed in global webs of enterprise.39 While the analyses of Porter and Reich - and related research on “national innovation systems” - are relevant and plausible, they assume (rather than demonstrate) that private competitiveness within a nation bestows a collective national gain. Such analyses also neglect the systemic problems that arise when some economic zones prosper at the expense of others,40 and have little to say about finance. So as it stands, literature on national competitiveness and innovation constitutes a pragmatic response to existing economic conditions, rather than a comprehensive analysis of the capitalist system. It is therefore unlikely to displace the predominant scientific research programme of the discipline.41

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______________________________________________________________ This brings us to the second cause of the decay of the economics discipline: the mainstream’s commitment to a degenerative scientific research programme. The philosopher of science, Imre Lakatos, conceived of a “scientific research programme” as a system of rules about what paths of inquiry to avoid and what paths to pursue. The first type of rules, which Lakatos dubbed the “negative heuristic,” is a “hard core” of propositions that is deemed to be “‘irrefutable’ by the methodological decision of its protagonists”.42 The second type of rules, the “positive heuristic,” is a “protective belt” of auxiliary hypotheses that bears the brunt of empirical tests and shields the hard core from falsification. This positive heuristic may be completely reformed as its empirical content increases.43 Furthermore, Lakatos reasoned that “A research programme is successful if all this leads to a progressive problemshift; unsuccessful if it leads to a degenerating problemshift.” An unsuccessful scientific research programme is one that “ceases to anticipate novel facts”.44 However, Lakatos also observed that a degenerative programme may be sustained for a long time: Even if the defeated programme is an old, established and ‘tired’ programme, near its ‘natural saturation point,’ it may continue to resist for a long time and hold out with ingenious content-increasing innovations even if these are unrewarded with empirical success. It is very difficult to defeat a research programme supported by talented, imaginative scientists. Alternatively, stubborn defenders of the defeated programme may offer ad hoc explanations of the experiments or a shrewd ad hoc ‘reduction’ of the victorious programme to the defeated one. But such efforts we should reject as unscientific.45 I have cited Lakatos because his philosophy of science provides powerful concepts with which to explain the survival of a moribund body of thought. As noted above, mainstream economics has for some time been suffering from recurrent and severe methodological and empirical problems. This can be attributed to its negative heuristic, which directs research away from the following aspects of capitalist production: x

x

the existence of fundamental uncertainty (or unknowable unknowns) and the reliance of agents on expectations and conjectures; the consequent instability of real investment and the fragility of financial structures;

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______________________________________________________________ x x

x

x x x

the evolution of economic behaviour through institutions in irreversible historical time; the “non-neutrality” or long-run impact of money (which arises because contractual obligations are fixed but future streams of income are uncertain); the non-substitutability of producible goods (like consumer durables) for non-producible stores of value (monetary savings); the peculiar character of the commodity of labour capacity and the political determinants of its terms of exchange; the prevalence of oligopoly, excess productive capacity and less-than-full aggregate demand; and the reproduction of arbitrary distributions of income and unequal power relations.46

Lack of space precludes a full discussion of the hard core of the orthodox scientific research programme and the myriad of auxiliary hypotheses that have been advanced to protect it. However, two conspicuous examples will be given. The first is the assumption that the abstract logical tendencies of timeless equilibrium models are directly applicable to actual historical trends. Ever since Ricardo, economists of all persuasions have employed the mechanistic analogy of equilibrium (balance of forces in space) to represent the reproduction of an unplanned economic system.47 However, some economists have reconceived equilibrium as an organic process in historical time. Notably, Alfred Marshall declared: In the earlier stages of economics, we think of demand and supply as crude forces pressing against one another, and tending towards a mechanical equilibrium; but in the later stages, the balance of equilibrium is conceived not as crude mechanical forces, but as between the organic forces of life and decay. The balance, or equilibrium, of demand and supply obtains ever more of this biological tone in the more advanced stages of economics. The Mecca of the economist is economic biology rather than economic dynamics.48 Lawson argues persuasively that two concepts of equilibrium - often conflated - have permeated the economics discipline. One is the “ontological” concept favoured by Marshall, that of an existing tendency towards systemic order. The other is the “theoretical” concept that arose with Walras’

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______________________________________________________________ mathematical model of general equilibrium, that of a multi-period price vector that solves n equations of exchange simultaneously.49 While theoretical equilibrium models can and have served as useful “thought experiments,” their immediate identification with historical phenomena obscures the crucial problem of time.50 As Allen Oakley affirms: [E]conomics is about processes, activities and change rather than about ‘states of mind’. Its events and phenomena are set in historical time with its excruciating interface between an immutable past and a perfidious future. Economic analysis that fails to take cognisance of this situation is bound to be largely irrelevant to an understanding of the human condition.51 From Samuelson onwards, mainstream economists have preferred mathematical rigour to all other forms of analysis, regarding it as the essence of science. But in line with his historical sense mentioned above, Samuelson was careful to distinguish between the assumption of predeterminateness (ergodic stochastic processes) that underpinned his models, and the complex (non-ergodic) system of capitalism actually under analysis. In contrast, many in the orthodoxy today ascribe purely theoretical certainty to an historical “market system,” a system posited as stable, efficient and best suited to satisfying material wants.52 Yet even though these ascriptions yield precision at the expense of relevance, they cannot be dropped; for that would disassemble the hard core of the orthodox scientific research programme into a formless rubble. Instead, the set rules and time-periods of Game Theory have been widely employed to present more subtle forms of optimizing behaviour; and this innovation has enhanced the protective belt of the mainstream research programme quite considerably.53 Another obvious symptom of the degeneration of the orthodox scientific research programme is the “aggregate production function.” This model treats all the factors of production (land, labour and capital) as logically equivalent and perfectly symmetrical. In particular, the version of the production function made popular by Charles Cobb and Paul Douglas in 1928 presents the shares of labour and capital in aggregate income (wages and interest) as inverse monotonic relations of their marginal physical products. But decades of contradictory empirical estimates have impelled researchers to impose a further, tautological constraint: that the distributive shares of labour and capital must sum to unity. Moreover, critics have demonstrated that the aggregate production function is theoretically invalid in a world of two or more commodities. The latter finding is neither recent nor refutable; it was reached in 1966 by pre-eminent economists embroiled in the “Cambridge controversies” in capital theory. Indeed, the unsoundness of the

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______________________________________________________________ aggregate production function was the only substantive conclusion that both parties to the debate agreed upon! Nevertheless, the very same tool was restored to prominence in the 1980s with “real business cycle” theory and the so-called endogenous growth models of Robert Lucas and Paul Romer.54 4. Conclusion In 1977, Joan Robinson wrote that “a great part of current teaching is in models that are evidently not intended to be taken seriously as hypotheses about reality, but are used rather to inculcate an orthodox ideology.”55 Naturally, this argument, which is even easier to make today, is unlikely to occur to mainstream economists, much less persuade them. This is because everyone regards his or her own ideology as an obviousness, something apparent and true. Ideologies do not announce themselves as ideologies and they present their truths as eternal.56 Accordingly, it is not surprising that orthodox economists should prefer the vague notion of market system to the historical concept of capitalism, and that they should exude a distaste for economic history and the history of economic thought. Moreover, when it is remembered that ideologies are not free-floating ideas but rituals and practices embodied in agents and institutions, the continual reproduction of defective analyses can be comprehended in terms of unequal power relations. In the case of the undead aggregate production function, mainstream journals flatly refused to publish heterodox critiques after 1982;57 and as Cohen and Harcourt grimly note, Robinson and Piero Sraffa - distinguished economists whose criticisms could not be ignored - both obliged the orthodoxy by dying in 1983.58 But just as theoretical conflicts reflect ideological struggles, so the institution of certain ideologies reflects the political reality of the era. It was contended above that long-run equilibrium models (which ignore historical time and posit a Panglossian end-state) are of negligible use to leaders in government or business. However, these models, like Ricardo’s of old, can serve to cloak a policy of inaction in the garb of statesmanship.59 Conversely, more adequate macroeconomic models, which could guide a policy of stable growth with a more progressive redistribution of income, have to confront the arduous analytic and practical challenges posed by the development of global financial markets and the transnational integration of production. That said, worsening environmental problems, or another total war between great powers, may necessitate radical changes in social being and thought that are inconceivable today. The regeneration of economics ultimately depends upon refocusing the discipline on matters affecting the material wellbeing of the majority. This requires that historically informed analyses of the capitalist system and its institutional order become the norm, and conjectures about elysian market equilibria the exception. Correspondingly, a healthful discipline should value

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______________________________________________________________ a range of techniques and perspectives, and consciously reproduce these in its publishing and teaching practices. A tradition so steeped in liberalism should not be afraid of a free market of ideas. On the contrary, the removal of analytic barriers is essential to the rejuvenation of economics. Finally, this chapter has examined the mutation of economics solely within Western countries and mostly between Anglophone economists. This might have been sufficient if economics still was, as the conservative philosopher Oswald Spengler put it in 1922, “exclusively Western-dynamic, anything but common-human.”60 But today there is much less reason to suppose that economics will not be reshaped and renewed as capitalism further develops on non-Western soil. Nonetheless, Spengler’s vision of the life and decay of civilizations compares favourably to the unconscious Western attitude that its forms of being and expression will unfold endlessly, and that its history is world history.61 If the West has, as Spengler believed, entered the winter of its civilization, then it is probable that the regeneration of the economics discipline will begin with the midsummer economists of other cultures. Perhaps it already has.

Notes 1. J. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle, trans. R. Opie, Galaxy, New York and Oxford University Press, UK, 1961, pp. 10 and 91. 2. J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, George Allen & Unwin, London, Fourth Edition, 1954, pp. 123f and 127. 3. Cf. Lord Keynes, ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,’ in D. Moggridge (ed.), The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol. VII, London and Basingstoke, Macmillan Cambridge University Press for the Royal Economic Society, 1973, p. 384. 4. P. Samuelson, Economics: An Introductory Analysis, McGraw-Hill Book Co. Ltd., Fifth Edition, 1961, pp. 5 and 9. 5. J. Foster, ‘Why is Economics Not a Complex Systems Science?’ Journal of Economic Issues, 2006, vol. 40, no. 4, 2006, p. 1072. 6. R. Gittins, ‘Economics Graduates do the best sums’, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Jan. 2005. 7. M. Moussa, On the Possibility of Economics, Ph.D. thesis, University of New South Wales, 2003, p. 2, emphasis in original. 8. Consult M. Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London, Second Revised Edition, 1963, Chapters 5 and 6. For an alternative view of the development of capitalism, see J. Schumpeter, ‘Capitalism’, in Essays of J. A. Schumpeter, ed. R. V. Clemence,

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______________________________________________________________ Addison-Wesley Press, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1951, pp. 184205. 9. M. Blaug, ‘Ugly Currents in Economics,’ Policy Options/Options Politiques, vol. 18, no. 7, 1997, p. 7. 10. See, for example, K. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I: The Process of Production of Capital, trans. S. Moore and E. Aveling, ed. F. Engels, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1954, p. 85n; Marx, ‘From the Critical History’, in F. Engels, Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1962, p. 313; and Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, ed. F. Engels, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1959, Chapter 48. 11. K. Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy, Vol. 1: General Theory, trans. E. Classen, ed. L. Robbins, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1934, p. 3. 12. Keynes, op. cit., p. 372. 13. J. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, ed. E. B. Schumpeter, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1954, Chapter 2. 14. Although as Schumpeter (ibid., p. 20) notes: ‘It is merely human nature that we overrate the importance of our own types of research and underrate the importance of types that appeal to others. Perhaps it is not too much to say that we should never do what we are doing, both in science and in other pursuits of life, if we did not do this.’ 15. I have discussed these issues in more detail elsewhere (M. Steen, ‘Schumpeter’s Theory of Ideological Influence’, History of Economics Review, Vol. 39 (Winter), 2004). 16. Sir William Petty, Political Arithmetick, or A Discourse Concerning The Extent and Value of Lands, People, Buildings, Husbandry, Manufacture, Commerce, Fishery, etc., London, 1690, Preface. 17. Wicksell, Lectures, pp. 11 and xxiii. 18. ibid., pp. xxii-xxiii and 11. 19. Samuelson, Economics, p. 7f. 20. See A. Lowe, ‘Toward a Science of Political Economics’, in A. Lowe, Essays in political economics: Public control in a democratic society, ed. A. Oakley, Wheatsheaf, Brighton, 1987, p. 158, emphasis in original. 21. J. Robinson, ‘What Are the Questions?’, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 15, no. 4, 1977, pp. 1319 and 1322f. 22. Wicksell, Lectures, p. 9ff. 23. T. Veblen, ‘Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 12, no. 4, 1898, pp. 373-97. 24. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p. 12f. 25. Blaug, ‘Ugly Currents in Economics,’ p. 8. 26. See Schumpeter, op. cit., p. 814.

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______________________________________________________________ 27. Joan Robinson’s 1977 survey of economic orthodoxy and its critics (op. cit.), written six years before her death, is a tour-de-force that has only become more pertinent with age. 28. Blaug, op. cit., p. 3. 29. Lawson cites damning assessments by Richard Lipsey, Wassily Leontief, Ronald Coase and Milton Friedman, as well as the passage by Blaug just quoted (T. Lawson, ‘The (confused) state of equilibrium analysis in modern economics: an explanation’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 27, no. 3, 2005, pp. 426ff). 30. $FFRUGLQJ WR WKH RXWVWDQGLQJ 3ROLVK HFRQRPLVW 0LFKDá .DOHFNL ZKRVH analyses prefigured Lord Keynes’s General Theory) ‘the price of this reform [of full employment] was the Second World War and the Nazi genocide which were the final effect of the heavy rearmament that initially played the role of stimulating the business upswing’ (see Kalecki, ‘The Fascism of Our 7LPHV¶LQ-2VLDW\ĔVNL (ed.), &ROOHFWHG:RUNVRI0LFKDá.DOHFNL9RO9,, Studies in Applied Econometrics 1940-1967; Miscellanea, trans. C. A. Kisiel, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 1997, p. 288). 31. Consult J. Kregel, ‘The myth of economic policy independence: some reflections on the failure of postwar schemes for stabilization of global demand in the post-war period’, in J. Halevi and J.-M. Fontaine (eds), Restoring Demand in the World Economy: Trade Finance and Technology, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA, 1998, p. 22f. 32. Consult Kalecki, ‘Vietnam and US Big BusinHVV¶LQ-2VLDW\ĔVNL (ed.), &ROOHFWHG :RUNV RI 0LFKDá .DOHFNL 9RO 9,, Studies in Applied Econometrics 1940-1967; Miscellanea, trans. C. A. Kisiel, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 1997; Kregel, ‘The myth of economic policy independence’, p. 25ff; and Lord Eatwell, ‘Unemployment: national policies in a global economy’, International Journal of Manpower, vol. 2, no. 5, 2000, p. 349f. 33. See J. Kregel, ‘Global portfolio allocation, hedging, and September 1992 in the European Monetary System’, in P. Davidson and J. Kregel (eds), Employment, Growth and Finance: Economic Reality and Economic Growth, Edward Elgar, Aldershot, UK and Brookfield, USA, 1994, p. 168f; and Lord Eatwell, op. cit., p. 349f. 34. See T. Palley, Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1998, Chapters 7 and 8; and Lord Eatwell, op. cit., pp. 358-61. The nature of the current constraint on fiscal policy is probably not quite so clear-cut as these analysts make out. For central banks are themselves significant players in derivatives markets and the case can be made that the issue and trade of instruments denominated in a certain currency has ever less to do with the characteristics of the underlying nation or currency zone (consult D. Bryan and M. Rafferty, The Global Economy in Australia: Global

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______________________________________________________________ integration and national economic policy, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, Australia, 1999, Chapter 7). But with the exception of the USA (whose dollar functions as the international reserve currency), it is hard to imagine a nation running significant budget deficits without losing the confidence of crossborder investors and risking a financial crisis. 35. For the questionable analytic credentials of the NAIRU, and the regressive policies it justifies, see Palley, op. cit., Chapter 7 and P. Davidson, ‘Can, or Should, a Central Bank Inflation Target?’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 28, no. 4, 2006, pp. 689-703. 36. Tony Aspromourgos has drawn attention to the passive use of fiscal policy in Australia under the Howard Coalition Government (see Aspromourgos, ‘The uses of fiscal policy and the role of monetary policy,’ Australian Review of Public Affairs (Digest), University of Sydney, 23 Feb. 2006). 37. Cf. L. Thurrow, ‘The Strengths and Weaknesses of Economists’, Policy Options/Options Politiques, vol. 18, no. 7, 1997, p. 8fff. 38. See M. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Palgrave, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK and New York, Second Edition, 1998, pp. xxiii, 19 and 25. 39. Consult R. Reich, The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21stCentury Capitalism, Simon & Schuster, London, Sydney, New York, etc., Paperback Edition, 1993, Chapters 10-14. 40. Cf. P. Davidson, ‘The Viability of Keynesian Demand Management in an Open Economy Context’ in P. Arestis and M. Sawyer (eds), The Relevance of Keynesian Economic Policies Today, Macmillan Press Ltd., Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London, and St Martin’s Press, Inc., New York, 1997, pp. 116-20; and D. Bryan, ‘Global accumulation and accounting for national economic identity’, Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 33, 2001, pp. 57-77. 41. However, Foster maintains that evolutionary theory (which has been a significant contributor to research on national innovation systems) can be incorporated into the mainstream once it has become a ‘complex systems science’ (Foster, ‘Why is Economics Not a Complex Systems Science?’). 42. I. Lakatos, ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’, in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1970, p. 131. 43. ibid., p. 135. 44. ibid., p. 133f. 45. ibid., p. 158. 46. Consult, for instance, Robinson, ‘What Are the Questions?’; P. Davidson, ‘Revising Keynes’s Revolution’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 6, no. 4, 1984, pp. 561-75; Davidson, ‘Reality and Economic Theory’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 18, no. 4, 1986, pp. 479-507; J.

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______________________________________________________________ K. Galbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York, 2004; Foster, op. cit.; and C. Niggle, ‘Evolutionary Keynesianism: A Synthesis of Institutionalist and Post Keynesian Macroeconomics’, Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 40, no. 2, 2006, pp. 405-12. 47. See Robinson, op. cit., p. 1322 and Foster, ‘Why is Economics Not a Complex Systems Science?’, p. 1073. 48. A. Marshall, ‘Distribution and Exchange’, The Economic Journal, vol. 8, no. 29, p. 43 49. Lawson, ‘The (confused) state of equilibrium analysis in modern economics’, pp. 431-35. 50. Robinson, ‘What Are the Questions?’, p. 1322. 51. A. Oakley, ‘Adolph Lowe’s Contribution to the Development of a Political Economics’, Editor’s introduction to A. Lowe, Essays in political economics: Public control in a democratic society, Wheatsheaf, Brighton, UK, 1987, p. 4. 52. An eloquent denunciation of the category of “market system” can be found in Galbraith, The Economics of Innocent Fraud, Chapter 2. 53. Consult Robinson, op. cit., p. 1323 and Davidson, ‘Reality and Economic Theory’. 54. Consult L. Pasinetti, ‘Critique of the neoclassical theory of growth and distribution’, BNL (Banca Nazionale del Lavoro) Quarterly Review, vol. 205, 2000, pp. 383-431, freely available as a stand alone document at http://www.unicatt.it/docenti/pasinetti/pdf_files/Treccani.pdf, of which see pp. 27-31, 44-49; A. Cohen and G. Harcourt, ‘Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 17, no. 1, 2003, p. 200ff; and I. Rima, ‘Increasing returns, new growth theory, and the classicals’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 27, no. 1, 2004, pp. 171-84. I have previously referred to the Cambridge Controversies as proof of the ideological character of economics (see M. Steen, ‘Schumpeter’s Theory of Ideological Influence’, pp. 51-55). 55. Robinson, ‘What Are the Questions?’, p. 1320. 56. L. Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)’, 1970, in L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays, trans. B. Brewster, Monthly Review Press, New York and London, 1971, pp. 159ff, 171f. 57. Pasinetti, ‘Critique of the neoclassical theory of growth and distribution’, p. 40f of version at http://www.unicatt.it/docenti/pasinetti/pdf_files/Treccani.pdf. 58. Cohen and Harcourt, op. cit., p. 200. 59. Cf. B. Gordon, Political Economy in Parliament: 1819 ~ 1823, Macmillan Press Ltd., London, Basingstoke, New York, etc., 1976, p. 70.

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______________________________________________________________ 60. O. Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. II: Perspectives of WorldHistory, trans. and ed. C. F. Atkinson, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1928, p. 469. 61. Cf. O. Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. I: Form and Actuality, trans. and ed. C. F. Atkinson, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1926, pp. 15, 75 and 104.

Bibliography Althusser, L. ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)’, in Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays, trans. B. Brewster. Monthly Review Press, New York and London, 1971, pp. 127-86. Aspromourgos, T. ‘The uses of fiscal policy and the role of monetary policy,’ Australian Review of Public Affairs (Digest), Sydney, 23 Feb. 2006. http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2006/02/aspromourgos.html. Blaug, M. ‘Ugly Currents in Economics’, Policy Options/Options Politiques, vol. 18, no. 7, 1997, pp. 3-8. http://www.irpp.org/po/. Bryan, D. ‘Global accumulation and accounting for national economic identity’, Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 33, 2001, pp. 57-77. Bryan, D. and Rafferty, M. The Global Economy in Australia: Global integration and national economic policy. Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, Australia, 1999. Cohen, A. J. and Harcourt, G. C. ‘Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 17, no. 1, 2003, pp. 199-214. Davidson, P. ‘Revising Keynes’s Revolution’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 6, no. 4, 1984, pp. 561-75. —–—––‘Reality and Economic Theory’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 18, no. 4, 1986, pp. 479-507. —–—––‘The Viability of Keynesian Demand Management in an Open Economy Context’, in P. Arestis and M. Sawyer (eds), The Relevance of Keynesian Economic Policies Today. Macmillan Press Ltd., Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London; St Martin’s Press, Inc., New York, 1997, pp. 114-135. —–—––‘Can, or Should, a Central Bank Inflation Target?’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 28, no. 4, 2006, pp. 689-703. Dobb, M. Studies in the Development of Capitalism. Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London, Second Revised Edition, 1963.

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______________________________________________________________ Eatwell, J. (after 1992: Lord Eatwell, Baron of Stratton St. Margaret in the County of Wiltshire). ‘Unemployment: national policies in a global economy’, International Journal of Manpower, vol. 21, no. 5, 2000, pp. 343-73. Foster, J. ‘Why is Economics Not a Complex Systems Science?’, Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 40, no. 4, 2006, pp. 1069-91. Galbraith, J. K. The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New York, 2004. Gittins, R. ‘Economics Graduates do the best sums’, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Jan. 2005, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/01/28/1106850108836.html# . Gordon, B. Political Economy in Parliament: 1819 ~ 1823. Macmillan Press Ltd., London, Basingstoke, New York, etc., 1976. Kalecki, M. ‘The Fascism of Our Times’, LQ - 2VLDW\ĔVNL HG  Collected :RUNVRI0LFKDá.DOHFNL9RO9,, Studies in Applied Econometrics 1940-1967; Miscellanea, trans. C. A. Kisiel, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 287-91, 1997. —–—––µ9LHWQDP DQG 86 %LJ %XVLQHVV¶ LQ - 2VLDW\ĔVNL HG  Collected :RUNVRI0LFKDá.DOHFNL9RO9,, Studies in Applied Econometrics 1940-1967; Miscellanea, trans. C. A. Kisiel, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, pp. 292-97, 1997. Keynes, J. M. (after 1942: Lord Keynes, Baron of Tilton). ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’, in D. Moggridge (ed.), The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol. VII. Macmillan Cambridge University Press for the Royal Economic Society, London and Basingstoke, 1973. Kregel, J. A. ‘Global portfolio allocation, hedging, and September 1992 in the European Monetary System’, in P. Davidson and J. Kregel (eds), Employment, Growth and Finance: Economic Reality and Economic Growth, Edward Elgar, Aldershot, UK and Brookfield, USA, 1994, pp. 168-183. —–—––‘The myth of economic policy independence: some reflections on the failure of postwar schemes for stabilization of global demand in the post-war period’, in J. Halevi and J.-M. Fontaine (eds), Restoring Demand in the World Economy: Trade Finance and Technology, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar, 1998, pp. 17-32. Lakatos, I. ‘Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’, in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1970, pp. 91-196.

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______________________________________________________________ Lawson, T. ‘The (confused) state of equilibrium analysis in modern economics: an explanation’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 27, no. 3, 2005, pp. 423-44. Lowe, A. ‘Toward a Science of Political Economics’, in A. Lowe, Essays in political economics: Public control in a democratic society, ed. A. Oakley, Wheatsheaf, Brighton, 1987, pp. 157-92. Marshall, A. ‘Distribution and Exchange’, The Economic Journal, vol. 8, no. 29, 1989, pp. 37-59. Marx, K. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I: The Process of Production of Capital, trans. S. Moore and E. Aveling, ed. F. Engels, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1954. ——–––‘From the Critical History’, in F. Engels, Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1962, pp. 312-46. ——–––Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, ed. F. Engels, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1959. Moussa, M. On the Possibility of Economics, Ph.D. Thesis, University of New South Wales, 2003. Niggle, C. ‘Evolutionary Keynesianism: A Synthesis of Institutionalist and Post Keynesian Macroeconomics’, Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 40, no. 2, 2006, pp. 405-12. Oakley, A. ‘Adolph Lowe’s Contribution to the Development of a Political Economics’, Editor’s introduction to Essays in political economics: Public control in a democratic society, by Adolph Lowe. Wheatsheaf, Brighton, 1987. Palley, T. I. Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1998. Pasinetti, L. L. ‘Critique of the neoclassical theory of growth and distribution’, BNL (Banca Nazionale del Lavoro) Quarterly Review, vol. 205, 2000, pp. 383-431. Freely available as a stand-alone document at http://www.unicatt.it/docenti/pasinetti/pdf_files/Treccani.pdf. Petty, Sir William. Political Arithmetick, or A Discourse Concerning The Extent and Value of Lands, People, Buildings, Husbandry, Manufacture, Commerce, Fishery, etc. Printed posthumously for Robert Clavel at the Peacock, and Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul’s Church-yard, London, 1690. Freely available as a standalone document at http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/petty/poliarith.html. Porter, M. E. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. Palgrave, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK and New York, Second Edition, 1998.

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______________________________________________________________ Reich, R. B. The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism, Simon & Schuster, London, Sydney, New York, etc., Paperback Edition, 1993. Rima, I. H. ‘Increasing returns, new growth theory, and the classicals’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 27, no. 1, 2004, pp. 17184. Robinson, J. ‘What Are the Questions?’, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 15, no. 4, 1977, pp. 1318-39. Samuelson, P. Economics: An Introductory Analysis. Fifth Edition, McGraw-Hill Book Co. Ltd., 1961. Schumpeter, J. A. The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle, trans. R. Opie, Galaxy, New York and Oxford University Press, UK, 1961. —–—––‘Capitalism’, in Essays of J. A. Schumpeter, ed. R. V. Clemence, Addison-Wesley Press, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1951. —–—––Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, George Allen & Unwin, London, Fourth Edition, 1954. ——–––History of Economic Analysis, ed. E. B. Schumpeter, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1954. Spengler, O. The Decline of the West, Vol. I: Form and Actuality, trans. and ed. C. F. Atkinson, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1926. ——–––The Decline of the West, Vol. II: Perspectives of World-History, trans. and ed. C. F. Atkinson, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1928. Steen, M. ‘Schumpeter’s Theory of Ideological Influence’, History of Economics Review, Vol. 39 (Winter), 2004, pp. 35-64. Thurrow, L. C. ‘The Strengths and Weaknesses of Economists’, Policy Options/Options Politiques, vol. 18, no. 7, 1997, p. 8fff. http://www.irpp.org/po/. Veblen, T. ‘Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 12, no. 4, 1898, pp. 373-97. Wicksell, K. Lectures on Political Economy, Vol. 1: General Theory, trans. E. Classen, ed. L. Robbins, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1934.

Pericles was a Plumber: Towards Resolving the Liberal and Vocational Dichotomy in Legal Education Craig Collins This chapter builds upon William Twining’s 1967 lecture, ‘Pericles and the Plumber’ and his 1997 chapter, ‘Pericles Regained?’ - although perhaps at the risk of the metaphor groaning under the weight of so much scholarly attention. It seeks to deepen and amplify three aspects of the discussion so far. First, it traces the emergence and crystallisation of the dichotomy. Historical observations about universities, the liberal arts and the relationship of law to both, are applied towards this purpose. Secondly, how one imagines the discipline of law influences the extent to which the dichotomy is either reinforced or broken down. A conception of the discipline is put forward towards achieving the latter. Thirdly, it reconceptualises the relationship between Pericles and the plumber with the effect that the latter becomes a necessary but not sufficient condition for achieving the former. Insights from developmental psychology are applied – particularly Kohlberg’s six stages of moral reasoning and Radding’s explanation of the eleventh century cognitive shift which, he argues, gave rise to both law and universities. The conclusion highlights the value of knowledge generated by courtroom combat - as one of the sources of historic and future transformations of the human mind. Keywords: Legal education, legal history, universities, discipline of law, courts, liberal arts, psychology, Twining, Kohlberg, Radding. 1.

Introduction How to reconcile the liberal tradition with the demands of the world of affairs is one of the perennial problems of university education. Possibly of all university subjects law faces the basic dilemma in its most acute form.1

In his 1967 lecture, ‘Pericles and the Plumber’, William Twining famously represented competing objectives of legal education as a tension between the polar images of his title. Pericles, an Athenian statesman who presided over a classical Golden Age, evokes the image of the lawyer as “the law-giver, the enlightened policy-maker, the wise judge.”2 This image directs legal education towards realising the ideal of “the wise ruler (education for leadership).”3 By contrast, the plumber is one who has mastered a category of specialised knowledge (the law) and certain technical skills. While Twining describes the Periclean and plumbing images as “crude, over-simplified and unrealistic” - and evoked only as a playful alliteration - he maintains that the

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______________________________________________________________ underlying schism has “so often been hidden in people’s assumptions about legal education” and has created “a fertile source of confused and confusing controversy.”4 Yet, more than 40 years after Twining’s lecture, the liberal and vocational dichotomy retains a powerful grip upon the imaginations of lawyers, academics and students. Beyond law, as the present volume demonstrates, a similar struggle is being played out in disciplines and fields as diverse as teacher-education, economics, nursing and hip-hop studies. A related variable is our changing conception of the university. Indeed, the difficulties faced by law in gaining acceptance within universities in late nineteenth century England has been said to be analogous with “jokes about ‘media studies’ or ‘catering and hotel management studies’ or other such phenomena of late twentieth-century academia.”5 As Steve Hedley observes: “[t]he main problem is always the theory/practice divide…The question always becomes how much of the new university subject will be practical, and how much theoretical.”6 It follows that any progress towards better understanding the liberal/vocational dichotomy (and the related theory/practice distinction) in legal education may well have wider application, particularly across emerging disciplines and fields of academic teaching and research. Another aim of this chapter, towards furthering the central theme of this volume, is to represent the value of knowledge, including changing conceptions of value over time and place. 2.

The Schism Between English Law and Universities The psyche tends to formulate experience in terms of paired opposites. In our culture socialization intensifies this predisposition; we are taught to distinguish, separate, and split - especially to split good versus bad.7

From the beginning, a vast schism separated English law from the English universities (Oxford and Cambridge). This split was crystallised early and was further compounded over time and place as, through British colonisation, the common law tradition spread widely around the world. Even today, law schools spawned by this tradition suffer a sense of unease, if not a fully blown “impostor syndrome”, within modern universities. 8 It will be argued later that it was no coincidence that the common law coalesced as the law of the realm in England, the Roman law of classical times was revived in Bologna, and the first European universities emerged, all at more or less the same time. Specifically, by the time Ranulf de Glanvill was chief justiciar (1180 -1189) towards the end of the reign of Henry II, “the outline of this common law of England, administered by a cohesive body of justices and following a distinct procedure, was clear and the basic elements established for many centuries.”9 Further, the revival of Roman law is

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______________________________________________________________ commonly attributed to Irnerius, the reputed founder of the Bologna law school in the early twelfth century, “from which the influence of [Justinian’s] Digest was then disseminated throughout the rest of Europe.”10 Finally, Jacques Verger contends that the law school at Bologna “clearly deserves…the somewhat vain title of oldest European university.”11 While the precise transition point from private law school to university is rather ambiguous, it seems beyond doubt that Bologna, together with the University of Paris, were the original universities. They provided the two basic templates for the other medieval universities that followed.12 Five overlapping factors help to explain how the Pericles and the plumber dichotomy became so entrenched in the English legal tradition. First, English common law was unique in prevailing against the widespread reception of Roman law that occurred across most of Europe by the thirteenth century (and also later in Scotland). This appears to be largely a matter of timing. The English institutions of law and government had developed earlier, and were already set on a different trajectory, “before the spread of Roman law provided models for ready imitation.”13 This point of difference the retention and elevation of customary law - had implications that are more fully explored below. Secondly, there was a north-south geographical divide that strengthened the dichotomy in England. The universities of northern Europe (including Oxford and Cambridge) tended to follow the Paris model, whereas those of southern Europe tended to follow Bologna. Broadly, in the north “the ruling classes were either ecclesiastics or a feudal aristocracy” with education “everywhere in the hands of the Church” whereas to the south there were more autonomous communities and “the secular view of learning had always held its ground.”14 Accordingly, Oxford and Cambridge (like Paris) became renowned for their theological and arts faculties whereas to the south “the subjects of prime interest were medicine and law, especially law.”15 A related consequence was the different emphasis upon “knowledge for its own sake” in the north and “fruitful knowledge” in the south: Just as the demand of the cloisters north of the Alps for speculative knowledge - for knowledge for its own sake, knowledge apart from all relation to social life, manifested itself in a revival of metaphysical and theological speculation and was ultimately met by the rediscovery of the forgotten Aristotle; so in the commercial and political society of the Italian cities there arose a demand for fruitful knowledge, for science applied to the regulation of social life - for civilization in the strictest sense of the word.16 The third factor is derived from the second. The theological (eternal and divine) focus of English universities was seen from that perspective as

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______________________________________________________________ superior to the mundane (everyday and pragmatic) focus of the common law: “[b]oth popular Christian piety and much medieval theology evidenced a decisive depreciation of the physical world and the present life, with ‘the world, the flesh, and the devil’ frequently grouped together as a satanic triumvirate.”17 Philosophically, the rediscovery of Aristotle’s metaphysics in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries sparked a new dialectic between reason and faith. But a related Aristotelian distinction - between practical and theoretical forms of knowledge - also reinforced the predisposition of theology to denigrate the material world of common law and lawyers. According to Aristotle, the philosophical life, spent in contemplation and study as an end in itself, was superior to the political life engaged in practical affairs, however much the latter might further the common good.18 In this way, the perspectives of theology and philosophy combined to deepen the schism between English law and universities. And the taproot extended all the way down to Aristotle’s thought some 1,500 years prior to the medieval period in question. By contrast, in the universities of southern Europe, law students and legal academics tended to hold a position of “marked superiority” compared with students and masters of other disciplines: Legal knowledge possessed then, as it still possesses, a political and commercial value to which no purely speculative knowledge can pretend. No teachers perhaps in the whole history of education had hithereto occupied quite so high a position in public estimation as the early doctors of Bologna.19 In the southern European universities, at least, “[m]edieval legal education was not directed towards the training of law teachers but of professional legal practitioners.”20 These universities were vocationally orientated, and unashamedly so. And, in the south, there was certainly no sense of inferiority in any comparison with the north. Even from the safe distance of a more modern perspective, Hastings Rashdall goes so far as to say that, “[i]n many respects the work of the School of Bologna represents the most brilliant achievement of the intellect of medieval Europe.”21 That achievement occurred despite (or, as argued below, because of) an approach that more fully integrated practical aspects of law with theory. At Bologna, for example, the gulf which according to our ideas separates technical and legal from general education was bridged over by the existence of the rather curious art known as dictamen. Dictamen [was] the art of composition. It was specially occupied with the art of letter-writing, and included not

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______________________________________________________________ only rules for private epistolary correspondence, but also more technical rules for the compilation of official briefs or bulls and other legal documents.22 The fourth factor concerns one aspect of the different trajectory followed by England. The separate body of learning based on the early common law treatises of Glanvill and Bracton soon coalesced around the law courts at Westminster in London.23 Though in 1289 we find the first reference to an “apprentice of the Bench”, this term was probably then understood to mean no more than “learner” and students were “apprenticed to the court itself, rather than any particular master.”24 The “apprenticeship” system of legal education for advocates evolved and became institutionalised in the London Inns of Court.25 Despite differences of legal substance and tradition, there was a certain resonance between the practically orientated approaches followed at the London Inns and Bologna. Law students attended university in southern Europe “just as lawyers and country gentlemen alike went to the London Inns of Court in the days when the inns were in fact what they were sometimes expressly called, a university of English law.”26 The Trojan horse by which the common law eventually breached the walls of Oxford was “the largest academic benefaction received by the university of the eighteenth century.”27 Upon his death in 1756, Charles Viner’s bequest was specifically directed towards establishing at Oxford a professorship in English common law. Yet, even having Sir William Blackstone in the first Vinerian chair was insufficient to create a successful marriage of academic and legal minds.28 Law teaching remained weak at the English universities well into the nineteenth century. Indeed, for traditionalists of the profession, “the best place to learn [law] was in chambers; and…forcing men to study generalities [at university] was a positive waste of time.”29 The fifth factor was the propensity of the medieval mind to institutionalise ideals, including those spawned by polar thinking. But, unlike in much of Europe, where the tensions between practice and theory were more fully contained and worked through inside universities, in England the polarisation between these things was made manifest in stone and mortar. Different ways of thinking about law - practical and theoretical - were separately housed in the Inns and universities respectively: “[i]deals pass into great historic forces by embodying themselves in institutions. The power of embodying its ideals in institutions was the peculiar genius of the medieval mind, as its most conspicuous defect lay in the corresponding tendency to materialize them.”30 Once entrenched and so fortified, one can perhaps begin to understand just what a deep-seated hold this dichotomy carries even today. But it is clear from the above survey that the Pericles and the plumber dichotomy was neither necessary nor inevitable. The dichotomy is not an intrinsic fact of any relationship between law and universities. But in the English context, the

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______________________________________________________________ relationship between common law and universities is well described as a long-living, “adversarial dance”: A further step in the process [of polarisation] is mutual shadow projection, in which each of a pair of persons, groups, or states serves as the perceived enemy of the other. These arrangements can be remarkably stable and long-lasting. The adversarial dance between polarised opponents may be contained and ritualised…Or it may become uncontrolled and immensely dangerous. 31 3.

The Common Bond Between Law and the Liberal Arts The common bond between law and the liberal arts is embodied in “the human”. Exploring the nature of this relationship offers an opportunity to lend some flesh and bones both to the historical Pericles and the idea of the lawyer as a plumber. Seen in human form, the sharp edges defining these polar images begin to blur and merge. Twining uses Pericles as a metaphor for the “lawyer-statesman” ideal that, by implication, is said to be the product of a liberal rather than vocational education. In doing so, he is tapping into the same Periclean ideal revived with the romantic period sweeping through Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.32 As German scholar, Wilhelm von Humboldt, said at the time: “[i]n the Greeks alone we find the ideal of that which we should like to be and produce.”33 Perhaps Pericles anticipated this kind of attention when he said that, “future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now”?34 By the time we come to the thoroughly unromantic late nineteenth century, we find the following assessment by Evelyn Abbott: It is, so far as I can judge, impossible to deny that [Pericles] destroyed a form of government under which his city attained to the height of her prosperity and that he plunged her into a hopeless and demoralising war. These are not the achievements of a great statesman. And so far as legislation goes, the Age of Pericles is a blank in the history of Athens.35 But Abbott does allow that Pericles’ greatness lay in “the ideals which he cherished.”36 The historical Pericles lived from about 494 to 429BC, entering the political stage about 463BC and effectively ruling as head of state for most of the period through to his death.37 The Golden Age epithet derives in no small part from the works of Thucydides, which include accounts of some of the speeches delivered by Pericles, including his thoughts about what made Athens great:

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______________________________________________________________ Our constitution is called a democracy because government is in the hands not of a few but of the majority; where private disputes are concerned everyone is equal under the law, and men are preferred for public office not because of their rank but because of their excellent qualities, according to their merits.38 Perhaps ironically, given a strict theory/practice divide, Pericles was a great a builder. He oversaw a massive building program at the Acropolis, which “included the massive and opulent statue of Athena…the Parthenon, and two other temples as well as a monumental gateway.”39 The idea of a liberal education, for present purposes, can be traced through five main historical phases, starting with the classical Greek system of education - the paideia - at the dawn of the Periclean age. This coincides with a move away from mythical gods and Homeric heroes and towards the “dignity of man.”40 Instead of a focus upon religious obligation and concern confined to one’s own social group, “we now find, in Athens, a stratum of educated men who are, so to speak, inwardly democratised, proud of their humanity, and willing to recognize the human dignity of each and everybody, regardless of their education.”41 As Snell observes, “[t]he discovery of this humanitas among the Greeks was not the work of philosophy. In fact, the gracious urbanity of the new concept forms a definite contrast to the cold severity of conceptual thought.”42 And it was also during this period that the Sophists introduced a new approach to education, recommending that “[b]ecause the skills for achieving excellence in life could be taught and learned, a man was free to expand his opportunities through education…Rational acuity, grammatical precision, and oratorical prowess were the prime virtues in the new ideal man..”43 From this, it would be difficult to maintain the view that the liberal education in the Periclean age was something which shunned and avoided functional skills and purposes related to practical, even vocational, ends. Later, though, Plato and Aristotle laid down a basic hierarchy of knowledge and an educational scheme comprising “a grounding in elementary grammar, literature, music, and arithmetic…which prepared the way for the advanced study of mathematics and finally philosophy, whose object was wisdom, the supreme end of knowledge.”44 The second phase of interest occurs where “[t]he Greek paideia found new life in the Roman aristocracy’s humanitas (Cicero’s Latin translation of paideia), the liberal education founded on the classics.”45 Cicero, too, embodied Roman pragmatism, with his view of humanism emphasising the power of speech and persuasion.46 Here, the liberal arts (“arts for the free, as opposed to the servile, man”), “had the directly practical end of preparing for a training in law and public life.”47 As during the classical Greek age, there

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______________________________________________________________ were no professional law schools. But consistently with the “apprenticeship” model later followed by the Inns of Court, “[t]he prospective Roman lawyer first went through a rhetorical school and then listened to the public legal arguments and expositions of the eminent jurists.”48 During the early Christian period, we find in Alexandria a Christian Platonist school “centered on the liberal arts and philosophy, but now with theology as the highest and culminating science of the new curriculum.”49 But then, moving more deeply into the Dark Ages, the Greek ideal of a liberal education was increasingly rejected as pagan, anti-Christian and ultimately - in the manner of projected shadows - evil. By the year 781, we find a revival of interest in education and learning among the Carolingians, with Charlemagne cementing the “seven liberal arts” (so numbered to match the biblical “seven pillars of wisdom”) as the basic medieval curriculum.50 These included the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music). (Interestingly, law was categorised under music.)51 But coverage of the liberal arts was rudimentary (with an emphasis upon reading, writing and chanting) and Charlemagne’s motives, too, were practical.52 It seems that he “took alarm…that the ‘uncouth language’ (lingua inerudita) of correspondence received at the court might mean that ‘as skill in writing was less, wisdom to understand sacred scripture might be far less than it ought rightly to be.”53 The fourth phase concerns the relationship between law and the liberal arts in the early universities. The classical four faculties were: theology, arts, medicine and law. Within the latter, in English universities, was included canon law and, of less importance, Roman law (but not, as explained above, common law). Four further points supplement observations made in the previous section relevant to this phase. First, the breadth of coverage of the seven liberal arts sounds more comprehensive than it actually was, with Rashdall describing the true scope as “really very meagre.”54 Secondly, the art of rhetoric was long connected with legal education, as we have already seen in classical times, and this came to be divided into “three branches, 'demonstrative', 'deliberative', and 'judicial' [which] allowed the introduction of law studies under the last-mentioned categories.”55 Thirdly, components of legal education were subsumed within the arts in Italian universities, whereby: grammar and rhetoric had a practical as well as a literary side. In Italy these arts were studied as aids to the composition of legal documents, as a preparation for the work of the notary and the pleader. Even logic was regarded rather as the sharpener of the wits and a discipline for word-battles of the law-court.56

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______________________________________________________________ Fourthly, arts was often a stepping stone for other disciplines such as law and medicine. More than 50% of the total student body, especially in the arts faculties of Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, were found “not infrequently” to be aged between 14 and 16 years old.57 Law students tended to be much older, of higher rank and having more extensive prior education. The final phase here considered returns to the romantic period with which this section began. By inflating the Greek ideal, the business of common law once more seemed profane and mundane. But this inverted the place of “the human”, as Snell explains: The trouble is that by talking of things ‘human’ and ‘humane’ and thus assigning a preferential share of dignity to man, we place ourselves in definite opposition to the practices of classical Greek speech. For with us the aura of solemnity which distinguishes the terms ‘humane’ and ‘humanity’ derives from the fact that man is thereby set off against the barbarian, or against the unreasoning beast. But the Greeks of the early and classical periods used the term ‘human’ in contradistinction to the notion of divinity: the human being is a mortal…thing, whereas god is immortal…Man is a frail and feeble being, the shadow of a dream.58 And so common law, which at various times has failed to measure up on the divine scale for being something all too human, at other times falls short against some classical standard of perfected human reason or wisdom. And, despite the elevation of the arts and humanities, conflated as they have become with theological and philosophical notions of knowledge for its own sake, for most of history the arts have carried as one component, at least, education for better reading, writing and speech - and as a means for getting on in the world. 4.

Law as a Circle of Discourse How one imagines the discipline of law - whether consciously or unconsciously - serves either to reinforce or dissolve the Pericles and the plumber dichotomy. A discipline is “a branch of instruction or learning.”59 The Latin noun disciplina (instruction, knowledge) was derived from discipulus (learner).60 Carrying the Roman penchant for system in education, the word “discipline” entered English, via Old French, in the sense “maintenance of order (necessary for giving instruction).”61 Historically, order was maintained, instruction was simplified and attention was focused by compartmentalising knowledge. Indeed, the above historical survey shows just how classical distinctions and categories became so rigidly applied and

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______________________________________________________________ institutionalised with the formation of medieval universities. And common law is, today at least, viewed as legal terrain carved up into various categories and sub-categories, as “areas” of law mapped out by the textbook literature. However, James Boyd White makes a persuasive case that dividing up knowledge into “disciplines” or “fields”, each with their own “territories” as might also be defined for university faculties or schools - is a false metaphor: A discipline can for many purposes in fact be defined as a community of discourse organized around its disagreements, its way of disagreeing, as well as its agreements…If you think of ‘fields’ not as terrains or machines, but as communities of discourse, groups of people defined by their willingness to talk in certain ways, the question becomes: What kind of relationships can we establish among these various ways of talking, and the communities they define? In so doing, what larger community can we create?62 Consistently with this, Michael Lobban argues that the view of the common law from the inside, from the perspective of lawyers and judges, was historically far more fluid than one might today suppose. Attempts by Blackstone (using the structure of Roman law as his model) and later Jeremy Bentham to impose system and coherence upon the apparent chaos of the common law are relatively recent developments and, in any case, were not really successful. By contrast, the practitioner view reflected Coke’s early seventeenth century definition, interpreted by Lobban to mean “that the common law was a system of reasoning, that the source of law lay in the way that judges thought about legal problems.”63 Law was not so much a thing, as patterns of thinking variably recomposed according to the capacities of the individual legal actors and the social milieu across time and place. The practitioner view better explains the renowned adaptability of the common law. Indeed, “[t]he law could change simply because it was not a fixed set of rules, but a reasoning process, working with a system of remedies.”64 Viewing law as fenced, patchwork terrain solidifies rigid categorisations such as the dichotomy here considered. A wider, more flexible and dynamic approach is to view the discipline of law as a particular process of reasoning and talking - as a “culture of argument”. So imagined, the relationship between general and specialised legal knowledge or between judicial wisdom and technical competence can perhaps be seen in a new light. This is best illustrated by overlaying this notion of the discipline upon the operation of the law in both Periclean times and under the system of English common law. During the Periclean age, the

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______________________________________________________________ circle of legal discourse was wide and the content political. The Athenian legal system seems alien to modern eyes. There were no judges. The jury could number up to 2,501 Athenian citizens, drawn from an annual list of 6,000 elected for this purpose.65 There were no lawyers or public prosecutors. Litigants represented themselves. There was no procedure except for a waterclock and a requirement to conclude trials within a day. Further, “there was usually little attempt to prove a particular law had been broken.”66 Instead, Freeman observes, “a series of vague assertions, widely drawn and often implying some form of ‘impiety’, were launched by the accuser.”67 A law case “was in essence a battle between the accuser and the accused in front of the jury and was inseparable from political and personal infighting.”68 The court was a political stage. Pericles, himself, faced such trials both as accuser and accused. He made his name by his prosecution of the incumbent leader, Cimon.69 But he was himself convicted of embezzlement towards the end of his life, although it was of course open to the jury to be influenced by the wider temper of the times, which happened to include a miserable plague and a failed military strategy.70 In this context, one can immediately see the value of a broad-based education in the “liberal arts”, with a special emphasis upon functional skills in “rational acuity, grammatical precision, and oratorical prowess”. Pericles was renowned for these technical skills, despite the outcome of his final trial. Importantly, though, for the purpose of imagining the Athenian circle of legal discourse, “Athens was, by our standards, a small town, where everyone knew everyone else and personal reactions and relations were important.”71 By contrast, the system of English common law has adapted to massive population growth, geographical displacement and the increasing complexities of the modern age. One can readily trace through from the twelfth century, and the embryonic institutions there found, the rise and influence of lawyers, the development and refinement of court processes and procedures and the increasingly specialised nature of legal discourse - not to mention far more complex, intricate and overlapping bodies of law. (Can specialised knowledge of this sort truly be compared with the plumber’s craft?) Unlike Pericles, those educated in law these days are expected to engage at multiple levels, namely: the “internal discourse of law” (eg, the discourse involving any combination of lawyers, judges and academics using the discipline-specific processes of reasoning, argument, domain knowledge and technical proficiency); and the “external discourse of law” (eg, translating the latter as a contribution towards a wider discourse with clients, policy-makers, experts in other disciplines and the public at large). Of course, there is a third, still wider circle of legal discourse, perhaps captured by the phrase “external discourse about law”. This is where traditional discipline boundaries start to break down, opening up different questions, ways of thinking and kinds of discussion about law. These concentric circles of legal

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______________________________________________________________ discourse need to be imagined as pulsating and dynamic, rather than static. And so, while a liberal education was well suited for equipping Athenian citizens for their style of law, and the core requirements of reading, writing and speech remain common to both, the modern system of law necessarily has a solidifying core of more specialised, even ‘technical’ knowledge. This reinforces the idea that the primary object of entry-level legal education should be to orientate students into the internal discourse of law (language, methods etc), as a necessary prior step before performing acts of translation or effectively engaging in cross-disciplinary discussions. 5.

The Getting of Wisdom If the discipline of law is painted as a broad image of mind and talk rather than as fenced terrain, then a rich field of inter-disciplinary discourse opens up for exploring and integrating the relationship between law and psychology. Specifically, patterns of legal thinking can be viewed through the lens provided by developmental psychologists such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Charles Radding is an historian who, in pioneering fashion, has sought to view law in this kind of way. Significantly, these insights can be applied towards reconceptualising the relationship between Pericles and the plumber. Piaget’s work, spanning the period from the 1920s to the 1970s, concerned how patterns of reasoning develop in children. He found that qualitatively different forms of reasoning emerge, although not inevitably so, with age. He identified four major stages of development to describe “the organized cognitive possibilities and limits that characterize a child’s thinking and feeling processes at a given point in the child’s development.”72 Piaget’s central ideas have withstood thousands of empirical studies and remain resilient and breathing. Kohlberg extends Piaget’s work beyond childhood and argues for six distinct stages of reasoning about justice and morality.73 This developmental sequence is fixed in the sense that one cannot achieve a higher stage without first passing through the preceding stages. The later stages involve “mastering cognitive operations that are logically more complex than the operations characterizing the earlier stage.”74 Further, one’s reasoning can comprise a mixture of adjacent stages and can regress under stress. Radding, in the medieval context, overlays Piagetian psychology upon fragments of legal, scientific and religious thought as captured by the documentary record.75 This sheds new light upon varying forms of reasoning within and about law – amongst both groups and individuals and within different cultural contexts. Towards the start of this chapter, it was noted that the English common law, the continental revival of the Roman law of the classical age, and European universities all emerged close in time during the twelfth century. While Radding’s work focuses upon the cognitive shift behind the continental revival, the same kind of process appears to underlie all of these

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______________________________________________________________ developments. Broadly, Radding identifies a distinct change of mentality about the year 1050. Using a broad brush, he contrasts the different modes of thinking within two large blocks of time - 100 AD to 1050, and 1050 to about 1700.76 In the earlier period, seven particular traits might be noted in connection with thinking about law. First, people conceived of law as “coming from the king, and…they believed that the king himself received his authority from God…[with both] conceived of as external to the community”.77 Secondly, both officials and subjects tended to have “an orientation toward literal, external obedience”, although this did not necessarily translate into consistently obeying rules in practice - only “formal” submission was required.78 Thirdly, “they regarded the words of their authorities as realities existing apart from consciousness, instead of as a logical development of ideas.”79 Fourthly, “instead of reasoning independently, the debaters quoted authority as a substitute for argument” their works relied heavily on quotations unprocessed by the mind as selfevident truths.80 Fifthly, “they believed their actions and wishes could influence the physical world either by the invocation of supernatural forces through ritualised prayer or by providing the occasion for the operation of divine justice” (eg, through trial by ordeal or battle).81 Sixthly, “[t]hey rarely concerned themselves with intention, whether they were assessing the morality of an action or interpreting the words of authority”.82 The notion of mens rea did not exist. People had difficulty distinguishing between objective and subjective worlds. Finally, small circles of obligation applied, mainly revolving around kinship. For officials, violence could occur so long as it did not directly affect them. In the age of the “blood feud”, violence was met with violence. People “took little interest in relations between peers except to regulate exchange and reprisals” and “had no sense of society as a community based on consent”.83 By contrast, a different mentality appears to be at work in the later period. First, “law and politics became affairs of the community, not just the king alone”.84 Secondly, a measure of reciprocity between king and subjects became expected (well exemplified in England by the Magna Carta of 1215).85 Thirdly, discussion of law “changed to being a creative rather than curatorial process”.86 Fourthly, attempts to understand authority and manipulate ideas emerged. Fifthly, people started to be judged using evidence and the power of reasoning, with the growing recognition that society and government was a product of human nature. Sixthly, intention emerges as a vital component in judging guilt or innocence - along with the capacity to see things from another person’s point of view. Finally, the sense of obligation became more generalised and less a matter of kinship and individual or temporal connections. Three points flow directly from this profound transformation. First, it echoes sharply with the cognitive transition from Homeric times to the Periclean Golden Age, as recounted in Bruno Snell’s work, The Discovery of

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______________________________________________________________ the Mind. Moreover, the 100 -1050 traits illustrate just how much was lost from classical times. The idea of democracy was hard to imagine during the Dark Ages. Secondly, it is of great educational significance that, these days, at the individual level and with the advantage of “sitting on the shoulders of giants”, this same cognitive shift away from a base, egocentric perspective occurs in most children. Thirdly, while the transition from Kohlberg’s stage 1 to stage 2 reasoning is a basic pre-requisite for individuals to begin learning law, making the transition from stage 3 to (at least) stage 4 is necessary for law graduates to begin to perform law in modern society. This involves a shift in perspective from the “concrete interests or standards of one’s group” towards taking “the shared point of view of the generalized other.”87 The idea of “the rule of law” only makes sense for those with a stage 4 pattern of thinking. It also offers a whole new basis for legal and moral judgment. Significantly, then, “law emerges for stage 4 reasoners as a central value.”88 6.

Conclusion: Courts as Cauldrons of Learning …external collective developments are decades behind the development of the individual, which is a kind of avantgarde of the collective and is concerned at a far earlier stage with the problems which subsequently catch the imagination of the collective as a whole.89

One of the earliest signs of the break away from the egocentric medieval mentality has been located at the law court at Pavia (in northern Italy, near Bologna).90 Radding argues that it was here that a fragmentation of authority transformed the conditions of discussion and debate among the lawyers. What emerges as the key to the period is the collapse of traditional authority…Unable any longer to count on their superiors to settle their disputes, disputants found it useless to cite rules and authorities in support of their position; the other side simply answered with citations of their own. Instead, people had to learn ways of persuading their peers by showing their interpretation of the text was correct, by answering the arguments of their opponents, and in general by appealing to the good sense of their audience. The effort to adapt to this necessity stimulated the development of cognitive skills that had rarely been required since the time of Cicero.91 Though the flourishing and impressive feats of the Bologna law school made it perhaps the brightest educational beacon – representing, as we have seen,

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______________________________________________________________ “the most brilliant achievement of the intellect of medieval Europe” - this marks just the visible tip of a monumental feat of imagination. While groping in the dark behind the curtains of history, progress for the Pavese jurists was “painful and gradual.”92 Their “sophisticated analytical techniques” were applied initially to customary Lombard law and, later, as glosses upon Justinian’s Digest - as it was soon after “rediscovered”.93 While cautioning against any tendency “to underestimate the [serious] effort required to think juristically”, Radding concludes that “it was the press of daily circumstances that first moved the lawyers of Pavia out of traditional ways of thinking, and then it was the desire to stump their colleagues that stimulated their desire for learning.”94 Speaking more generally, courts contain the ingredients for this sort cognitive shift to occur - both for the individual legal actors and, through the influence of courts and lawyers, upon society at large. Using courts as a mental laboratory, lawyers reason, talk and argue with the aim of persuasion. Litigants, while pursuing on the spot resolution of real and unique disputes, enter courts to argue their case, with the ultimate outcome a live issue and certainly no forgone conclusion. In this way, courts draw within, contain and dissipate social pressures. Old patterns of thinking combust, as lawyers’ strain to recompose and explain a legal problem and advocated solution under the intense heat generated by this combination of peer challenge, public transparency, novelty and necessity. Lawyers experience first hand the consequences - whether success or failure - of their reasoning and talk. The social conflict of litigants, therefore, potentially produces cognitive conflict for lawyers and their tools of thought – within the court as a simulated field of battle. And so, the relationship between Pericles and the plumber can be reconceptualised in two ways. One way is to equate the plumber image to the rule-bound lawyer (Kohlberg stages 1 and 2) and Pericles to the more elevated perspective of the societal point of view (stage 4) through to a pattern of thinking in terms of universal ethical principles (stage 6). But dissolving the dichotomy, with the aid of the Lombardian lawyers plying their trade in the law court at Pavia nearly one thousand years ago, also allows wisdom to be situated in practice. Either way, Pericles was a plumber.

Notes 1. W. Twining, Pericles and the Plumber, The Queen’s University, Belfast, 1967, p. 11. An abbreviated version is published in W Twining, Law in Context: Enlarging a discipline, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, pp. 63-88. 2. ibid., p. 10. 3. ibid.

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______________________________________________________________ 4. ibid., p. 32. 5. S. Hedley, ‘Sir Frederick Pollock and the Teaching of English Law’, in J A Bush and A. Wijffels (eds), Learning the Law: Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England 1150-1900, The Humbledon Press, London, 1999, p. 410. 6. ibid., pp. 410-11. 7. E. Neumann, Depth Psychology, Shambhala, Boston, 1990, p. 1. 8. “Like many other disciplines, especially those that are unsure of their full acceptance within the academy, law is endemically plagued by self-doubt”: W Twining, ‘A Nobel Prize for Law?’ in W Twining, Law in Context: Enlarging a discipline, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, pp. 339-353 at p. 340. 9. R.C. Van Caenegem, The Birth of the English Common Law, Cambridge University Press, London, 1974, p. 3. 10. C. Radding, A World made by Men: Cognition and Society, 400-1200, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1985, p. 173; H Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages: Vol. 1 of 3, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1936, pp. 92 & 121-2. 11. J. Verger, ‘Patterns’, in H. De Ridder-Symoens (ed), A History of the University in Europe, Vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 47. 12. ibid., pp. 48-50; W Rüegg, ‘Themes’ in H. De Ridder-Symoens (ed), A History of the University in Europe, Vol. 1 of 4: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 4-7. 13. Radding, op. cit., p. 236. 14. W. Boyd, The History of Western Education, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1969, p. 130. 15. ibid. 16. Rashdall, op. cit., p. 97. 17. R. Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind, London, 2000, p. 166. 18. B Snell, The Discovery of the Mind, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1982, p. 39; Aristotle, Ethics, Penguin Books, London, 1985. But note Charles Freeman’s observation that “[s]ome modern philosophers argue that it is impossible to reconcile Aristotle’s view of an ideal life based on contemplation with his assertion that human beings are by nature social animals”: C. Freeman, The Greek Achievement, Penguin Books, New York, 1999, p. 281. 19. Rashdall, op. cit., p. 125. 20. Rüegg, op. cit., ‘Themes’, p. 25. 21. Rashdall, op. cit., p. 254. 22. ibid., pp. 109-10.

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______________________________________________________________ 23. P. Brand, ‘Legal Education in England Before the Inns of Court’, in J.A. Bush & A.Wijffels (eds), Learning the Law: Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England 1150-1900, Humbledon, London, 1999, p. 51. 24. ibid., pp. 62-3. 25. ibid. 26. Rashdall, op. cit., p. 260. 27. D.J. Ibbetsen, ‘Charles Viner and His Chair: Legal Education in Eighteenth Century Oxford’, in J.A. Bush and A. Wijffels (eds), Learning the Law: Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England 1150-1900, Humbledon, London, 1999, p. 315. 28. ibid. 29. C.W. Brooks and M. Lobban, ‘Apprenticeship or Academy? The Idea of a Law University, 1830-1860’ in J.A. Bush and A. Wijffels (eds), Learning the Law: Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England 1150-1900, The Humbledon Press, London, 1999, p. 377. 30. Rashdall, op. cit., p. 3. 31. Neumann, op. cit., p. 1. 32. Freeman, op. cit., p. 281. 33. ibid., p. 6. 34. ibid., p. 1. 35. E. Abbott, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1898, p. v. 36. ibid., p. 5. 37. D. Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy, The Free Press, New York, 1991, p. 26. 38. R. Waterfield, Athens, Macmillan, London, 2004, p.113. 39. Freeman, p. 231. 40. See Snell generally. 41. ibid., p. 250. 42. ibid., p. 252. 43. Tarnas, p. 29. 44. G. Leff, ‘The Trivium and the Three Philosophies’, in H. De RidderSymoens (ed), A History of the University in Europe, Vol. 1 of 4: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 307. 45. ibid., p. 87. 46. Snell, op. cit., p. 247. 47. Leff, op. cit., p. 307. 48. H.E. Barnes, An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World: Vol. 1 – From earliest times through the Middle Ages, Heron Books, London, 1965, p. 223. 49. ibid., p. 152. 50. Tarnas, op. cit., p. 451.

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______________________________________________________________ 51. Boyd, op. cit., p. 117. 52. Radding, op. cit., p. 125. 53. ibid., p.122. 54. Rashdall, op. cit., p. 92. 55. ibid., p. 102. 56. ibid., p. 93. 57. R. Schwinges, ‘Student Education, Student Life’, in H. De RidderSymoens (ed), A History of the University in Europe, Vol. 1 of 4: Universities in the Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 1968. 58. ibid., p. 246. 59. C. Yallop and others (eds), Macquarie Concise Dictionary, 2004, 334-5. 60. J. Ayto, Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins, Bloomsbury, London, 1990, p. 174. 61. J.B. White, Justice as Translation, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1990, p. 16. 62. ibid., p. 7. 63. M. Lobban, The Common Law and English Jurisprudence 1760-1850, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991, p. 7. 64. ibid., p. 54. 65. Freeman, op. cit., p. 226. 66. ibid., p. 227. 67. ibid. 68. ibid., p. 226. 69. Kagan, op. cit., pp. 39-40. 70. ibid., p.242. 71. Waterfield, op. cit., p. xvii. 72. J. Reimer, D. Paolitto and R. Hersh, Promoting Moral Growth: From Piaget to Kohlberg, 1990, p. 25. 73. L. Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development, Vol. 1: The Philosophy of Moral Development, 1981; L Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development, Vol. 2: The Psychology of Moral Development – The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages, 1984. 74. Reimer, op. cit., p. 53. 75. Radding, op. cit. 76. ibid., p. 256. 77. ibid., p. 78. 78. ibid., p. 147. 79. ibid., p. 128. 80. ibid., p. 131. 81. ibid., p. 153. 82. ibid.

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______________________________________________________________ 83. ibid., p. 153. 84. ibid., p. 256. 85. ibid., p. 239. 86. ibid. 87. Reimer, op. cit., pp. 15, 71 and 74. 88. ibid., p. 75. 89. Neumann, op. cit., p. 29. 90. The cathedral school at Chartres was another: Radding, op. cit., p. 255. 91. Radding, op. cit., p. 155. 92. ibid., p. 199. 93. ibid., p.175. 94. ibid., p.186.

Bibliography Abbott, E., Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens. Putnam, New York, 1898, p. v. Ayto, J., Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins. London, 1990. Barnes, H E., An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World: Vol. 1 – From earliest times through the Middle Ages. Heron, London, 1965. Boyd, W., The History of Western Education. Adam & Charles Black, London, 1969. Bush and A Wijffels (eds), Learning the Law: Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England 1150-1900. Humbledon, London, 1999. De Ridder-Symoens, H (ed), A History of the University in Europe, Vol. 1 of 4: Universities in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. Freeman, C., The Greek Achievement. Penguin Books, New York, 1999. Kagan, D., Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. The Free Press, New York, 1991, p. 26. Kohlberg, L., Essays on Moral Development, Vol. 1: The Philosophy of Moral Development. Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1981. Kohlberg, L., Essays on Moral Development, Vol. 2: The Psychology of Moral Development – The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1984. Lobban, M., The Common Law and English Jurisprudence 1760-1850. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991. Neumann, E., Depth Psychology. Shambhala, Boston, 1990.

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______________________________________________________________ Radding, C., A World made by Men: Cognition and Society, 400-1200. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1985. Rashdall, H., The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages: Vol. 1 of 3. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1936. Reimer, J, Paolitto, D and Hersh, R., Promoting Moral Growth: From Piaget to Kohlberg. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, 1990. Snell, B., The Discovery of the Mind. Dover, New York, 1982. Tarnas, R., The Passion of the Western Mind. Pimlico, London, 2000. Twining, W., Pericles and the Plumber. Queen’s University, Belfast, 1967. Twining, W., Law in Context: Enlarging a discipline. Clarendon, Oxford, 1997. Van Caenegem, R C., The Birth of the English Common Law. Cambridge University Press, London, 1974. Waterfield, R., Athens. Macmillan, London, 2004. White, J B., Justice as Translation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1990.

Explaining the Complexities and Value of Nursing Practice and Knowledge Heather McKenzie, Maureen Boughton, Lillian Hayes, & Sue Forsyth This paper focuses on an issue that in our view is central to the worldwide crisis in nursing and, therefore, healthcare today. We argue that there is little public understanding of the full significance of nursing practice, and that nurses themselves lack the vocabulary to comprehensively explain what it is that they know and do, and why their discrete knowledge base and practices are significant for those in their care. As a result of recent significant changes within health care in western countries, the role of registered nurses is fundamentally threatened in the contemporary healthcare workplace, and it is crucial, therefore, for nursing to enhance its explanatory power and so be in a position to adequately justify its existence. With reference to our research findings and current debates about the contemporary crisis in nursing, this paper argues that the real challenge for nursing today is to find the language to successfully convince others of the intrinsic value of its knowledge and practice. In our view this can best be achieved through research that renders visible, and comprehensively explains, the complexities of nursing practice. Key Words: Nursing knowledge, crisis in nursing, cancer care, health care, nursing lexicon. 1.

Introduction Across the world today there is a critical shortage of registered nurses. In spite of numerous local, national and international initiatives designed to address this situation, the crisis continues for most countries. At the same time, paradoxically, the profession itself is experiencing a very different kind of crisis – an existential crisis, in fact, which, on the one hand, contributes to the shortage of nurses because of its demoralizing effects,1 and, on the other, forces the profession to find ways to explicate its relevance and so justify its existence.2 In this paper we argue that a failure on the part of the profession to articulate the nature of its knowledge base, as well as its significance for effective delivery of appropriate health care and optimum patient outcomes, largely underpins this existential crisis. Drawing on a number of recent debates and discussions and also findings from a study of the complexities involved in community care of cancer patients, this paper argues that there is little public understanding of the full significance of nursing practice, and that, for the most part, nurses themselves lack the vocabulary with which accurately and comprehensively

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______________________________________________________________ to explain what it is that they know and do, and why their discrete knowledge base and practices are significant for those in their care. 2.

The Contemporary Crisis in Nursing It is now at least twenty years since nursing education in most western countries has changed from being a purely hospital-based endeavour to a combination of university and work place programmes. This development has coincided with other fundamental work place reforms. It is now commonplace that managerialist principles have transformed the organization and delivery of health care services across the western world and beyond. The considerable effects of these latter changes have been felt by all health care professional groups as well as by the recipients of care and their families. The impact of these two, coincidentally in-tandem, developments on nursing as a profession has been enormous, with some commentators suggesting that the practice of bedside nursing is fundamentally threatened in the contemporary workplace, and that the most important issue facing nursing today is the need to defend its position at the ‘proverbial bedside [wherever that may be] over the long-term’.3 Defending this position requires an effective vocabulary and considerable self-understanding, but to date the profession has struggled to find the language through which to successfully convince others of the intrinsic value of its knowledge and practice. In our view this is primarily because nursing work is embedded in a world dominated by two powerful languages (scientific and managerial), both of which are in effect second languages for nurses, and neither of which can adequately accommodate explanations of many of the things that nurses know and do. The lack of congruence between nursing work and the new managerialism in health care, an approach that is inherently unsympathetic to endeavours that are resistant to quantification, has been well demonstrated.4 The increasing demands for evidence of the scientific character of nursing is seen at times by nurses as attempting to squeeze a round peg into a square hole.5 Lawler, for instance, has drawn attention to some of the issues raised for nursing as it is inevitably caught in complex webs of managerialist and biomedical imperatives, many of which serve to obfuscate and, therefore, devalue the nature and effectiveness of nursing practice. She argues that ‘discourses of the sciences and economics, while they have shaped and continue to shape the way we talk and think about nursing, have silenced important and central concerns for nursing’.6 In addition, we also argue that historical circumstances have not required nursing as a profession to explain itself, a situation that has left the profession, in effect, at a loss for words. It is this lack of explanatory power that is the main focus of this chapter. Here, we argue that it is through the telling of stories that render visible the intricacies, intimacies and

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______________________________________________________________ significances of nursing practice that such explanatory power can be developed. 3.

Rendering the Invisible Visible In this chapter we draw on a study that sought to identify the minutiae of nurses’ work in community care of cancer patients.7 The study was conducted in two sites in New South Wales. The intention was to render visible the complexities of nursing work in this setting through examination of (i) patient and nurse perceptions of what constitutes a successful nursepatient encounter in this context, and (ii) the elements of each encounter that are not recognized or accounted for by nurses or patients, but which may, nevertheless, be contributing to important consequences of the encounter. Data collection focused on specific nurse-patient encounters but also encompassed pre- and post-encounter nurse interviews as well as postencounter interviews with patients and, often, family members. Data was also collected during non-participant observation of the nurse-patient encounter. This comprehensive data collection process was designed to ensure that as much information as possible would be gathered about each nursepatient encounter so that the full spectrum of nursing work in this setting could be revealed. One of the significant findings of the study was the extent to which patients and nurses failed to identify all of the discrete elements of care involved in each encounter. In some instances patients and nurses did attempt to relate those aspects of nursing care that they saw as important to the bigger picture of patient well-being. However, without the nonparticipant observations of each encounter, many significant aspects of care would have been missed, thus limiting opportunities to tell all-encompassing stories about the encounters. In this chapter we focus on two of these stories, and suggest that detailed analyses of such stories significantly contribute to nursing’s continuing efforts to properly articulate the value of its own knowledge and practice. 4.

Caring for Henry Henry, a man who was in his late 60s when we met him, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer several years earlier and was also suffering with liver and bone metastases. Henry was a participant in the study referred to above. The encounter involving Henry took place in his home, where his wife was caring for him with support from the community nursing service. His two daughters were also there, one who lived nearby, and the other just visiting her parents for a few days. Although he was very ill, the nursing service had only been involved in Henry’s care for one week, with the same nurse, Penny, visiting him daily. Henry’s condition was deteriorating rapidly, and at this stage he was experiencing a lot of pain, was unable to support

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______________________________________________________________ himself out of bed, and was tolerating very little food. His wife was waiting to be admitted to hospital for orthopaedic surgery, so was struggling to provide the hands on care that he needed. In the pre-encounter interview, Penny explained that she was intending to assess Henry’s pain, that she had brought with her a special cushion and a mattress to try to make him more comfortable and at the same time prevent the development of pressure sores, and that she wanted to explore the family’s ongoing support needs. When asked in the second interview what had happened during the encounter, Penny identified pain management, problems with urinary retention and a discussion about the possibility of transferring Henry to hospital as its main components. She briefly mentioned putting the cushion and mattress in place and organizing some treatment for his oral thrush. Asked for more detail about the hospitalization issue, Penny said that she sensed the family members were fearful that Henry might die at home and so she had outlined for them the steps they should take if that were to happen. She had also stressed that they could call the nursing service or the GP at any time for advice or support. We would come out and we would just assess him and if we thought well…he needs to go to hospital, we’ll just call the ambulance. They’ll take him to hospital, put him straight into the hospice. I did speak to the nun on the ward that has the hospice yesterday and she is aware that this man may come in shortly. So, that’s their little thing that they’ve got to follow. Also I’m going to arrange for the social worker to come out and speak to them. I don’t think the mother is coping very well. One of the daughters, is coping … but the other daughter I am not sure how she’s coping either. So I’ll get…the social worker to come out and speak to them and just have a nice little in-depth chat. In the post-encounter interview with Henry and his family, the researcher asked about their experiences of the encounter. Henry said that he was satisfied with the nurse’s visit because she ‘tried to get through to’ the cause of his pain. He also stated that the new cushion was helpful. Henry’s wife said that the nurse’s visits meant a lot to her because it gave her pleasure and reassurance ‘to have someone to talk things over with’. They did not elaborate in any more detail on the nurse’s work. Although these three interviews do provide us with some sense of the encounter as a whole, it is the observer’s field notes that complete the picture. Here, we learn that Penny identified an immediate need for breakthrough pain medication for Henry, and that, rather than administering this herself, she helped one of Henry’s daughters to do this, explaining that

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______________________________________________________________ this is something they can do themselves whenever it is indicated. She also spent some time showing Henry’s daughters how to make the most of the new cushion and mattress and how to use the mattress pump. One of the daughters told Penny that they were worried about transferring their father from the bed to the wheelchair or the commode, so Penny demonstrated to them the best way to achieve this, then supervised them doing it. It is also clear from the field notes that, sensing the need to create an opportunity for discussion of a subject that was deeply troubling them all, Penny raised the possibility of Henry going to hospital to die. The nurse is kneeling by the patient’s chair … The nurse asks if the patient wants to go to hospital. The patient looks at his wife. The nurse says it’s up to you, whatever you want. The patient takes his medication … The nurse explains that the patient can go to hospital whenever he wants to. The wife says she couldn’t bear to stay at the hospice, that she couldn’t cope there. She says she would go during the day to visit. The nurse asks the wife if she would like to see a social worker. Wife says, ‘Oh yes, might as well’ … The patient asks ‘what if I go to hospital and then after a day I want to come home?’ Nurse says that’s not a problem. The nurse asks if the patient knows where he wants to die, at home or hospital? The family say in hospital, they state they can’t manage at home ... The patient is very quiet. Nurse and family discuss the hospice. Nurse says, ‘it’s in your hands’, to the patient, ‘whatever you want’. Patient agrees, he is confused. Patient states, ‘I just want to stay home’. A. What is Really Going on Here? Conceptualizing the encounter as a discrete comprehensive care episode, we can see that Penny is fulfilling a number of roles. She is assessing Henry’s physical state and addressing or advising about both simple (oral thrush, prevention of bedsores) and complex (urinary retention, breakthrough pain) needs. At the same time she is educating Henry’s family about the use of new equipment (cushion and mattress) and developing their skills for managing his care (wheelchair transfer, administering medications) so that he can continue to be at home if that is his and their wish. She is acting in a pivotal role in relation to referring Henry and his family to other health care professionals for specific needs, for example calling in a social worker, notifying the hospice of a likely admission and suggesting the GP be called in an emergency. In addition, Penny is skilfully and sensitively creating a safe space for the family to discuss an issue that is looming large

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______________________________________________________________ for all of them, but which they have not yet been able to broach with each other. In a timely fashion, she has recognized that this is now a critical need for the family, and, in the midst of their other shared activities, has gently facilitated their first conversation about how and where Henry will die. Clearly Penny is a skilled and knowledgeable health care worker, ably managing a sensitive situation to everyone’s satisfaction. This is routine work for Penny (completed in forty minutes), and yet there is little public understanding of the complexities involved in her work, or of the full significance of it for all of the people involved. Many of the discrete elements of Penny’s work, and the ways in which these combine to form a comprehensive care episode, are largely hidden from public scrutiny. This is only partly because the work is done in a secluded setting; it is also, and perhaps predominantly, because neither Penny nor Henry and his family are in a position to, or even able to, articulate the minutiae of their interactions and then to relate these to the bigger picture of illness experiences and nursing. 5.

Caring for Danielle Another participant in the study drawn on here was a 35 year old woman, Danielle, who was being treated for a brain tumour and metastatic disease. Danielle was living with her husband and two very young daughters, and the community nurses had been visiting her daily for over 6 months. As part of her ongoing treatment, Danielle was having daily injections and this was the primary purpose of the regular nursing visits. On the day of our research session with Danielle, her husband was at home but the two children were out. Tracey, the nurse in attendance on that day, explained in the pre-encounter interview that, in addition to the daily injections, she was working with the family on a number of other fronts. She was carefully monitoring Danielle’s condition, which was quite variable particularly during chemotherapy cycles. She was helping Danielle and her husband to manage the side effects of the chemotherapy and trying to encourage Danielle to follow recommended care practices. For example, she was very concerned about Danielle’s mouth condition. As she explained, Danielle was refusing to use a regular mouthwash in spite of Tracey’s encouragement: ‘She just doesn’t, she won’t do it – so I just have to keep on finding other ways of making sure that her mouth is OK and sort of ensuring that she’s using, she’s got some fungal and lozenges … just to make sure that she’s using a soft toothbrush’. Tracey was also monitoring Danielle’s fluid intake, especially during bouts of diarrhoea and making suggestions about medications and foods that might help to reduce nausea. Tracey was also mindful of safety issues. At times during chemotherapy regimens Danielle was experiencing sudden bouts of vomiting

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______________________________________________________________ and Tracey was concerned about protecting family members from the possible effects of being exposed to body fluids at such times. The other thing that we have to keep on reiterating is their sort of personal protection because of chemotherapy, you know making sure that she’s double flushing toilets, making sure that if she is sick that [her husband] double cloves and double wraps things and disposes of them correctly and all that sort of stuff – and making them aware that the kids, you know, that they do, for a few days they have to be careful. In addition, Tracey was very concerned about the two children because, although their mother had been ill for over two years, the severity of her illness had not been explained to them and Tracey was ‘fairly sure that they’re very aware that there is something wrong’. She stated that the older child was very withdrawn and having frequent nightmares. She was also concerned that the younger child, then a noisy and energetic four year old, was causing Danielle to become agitated and irritable. ‘She keeps on …saying to me “Do you want to take her home, you can have her, I’ll give you away, give her away”, and the child hears this’. Tracey was beginning to worry about the likely effects of these kinds of comments on the child. Some weeks earlier she had asked the social worker to provide Danielle’s husband with some information about how to talk and work with children in these circumstances. Tracey was very pleased that he had finally broached this subject with her during this visit. [He] said “look just come and have a look” and he’d actually taken out the information that the social worker had given them on … how to approach the children … about breaking the news of whatever and I thought that was good that he’d actually gone and got the information … and I said look if you’ve got any problems just call the social worker before you even start with it, you know, and talk it through with her as to how you should go about it or if you’ve got any queries about anything and just clarify it all before you actually do it with the children, but maybe it’s twigging with him that he really does need to do something with the children. Tracey explained that she would call in the social worker and a grief counsellor at the appropriate time. The nurses were also making arrangements

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______________________________________________________________ for the family to have a holiday at a respite facility which they thought would be helpful. A. What is Really Going on Here? Clearly, the involvement of community nurses in Danielle’s care is complex and extensive. As far as Danielle and her husband were concerned, however, the daily injection was really the only reason for the visits: ‘It’s really only one injection, they don’t have to talk to me if they don’t want to, they just have to inject’, explained Danielle. They did point out that it was helpful in a crisis to have advice from the nurses, and Danielle’s husband also pointed out that the nurses were keeping an eye on Danielle’s general condition. But they did not think the visits would be warranted if the injections were not needed. The interviews with Tracey and the observer’s field notes, though, reveal that the scope of the care provided by the community nurses extended far beyond the daily injection. It is clear from the data that Tracey was paying very close attention to the subtle and fluctuating circumstances in this complex family situation, and tailoring the care provided accordingly. Sometimes this meant calling in other health professionals, or finding solutions to complex physical problems that were acceptable to Danielle and her family. Sometimes it meant quietly waiting for the right moment to make suggestions about very sensitive family issues. At other times Tracey was responding to crises arising from side effects of chemotherapy or anticipating what might happen or be needed in the near future and making the necessary preparations. It is clear to us (although the study did not set out to demonstrate this) that without the involvement of community nurses in Danielle’s care many of her needs would not have been met. It is very likely that, without Tracey’s watchful presence, Danielle would have required medical visits and possibly hospitalisation on a number of occasions. Because of the invisibility of much of Tracey’s work, though, and nursing’s lack of explanatory power, the importance of it for Danielle’s comfort, security and well-being is not well understood. 6.

Discussion We argue here that the overuse and misuse – both within nursing and in the broader community – of the two terms care and holistic to define nursing work, are indicative of the poverty of the nursing lexicon. These terms certainly fail to elucidate the richness, variety and interdisciplinary nature of the interactions described above. However, finding the time and energy to properly address this issue is problematic for the profession, given the imperatives of the contemporary health care workplace that continually demand hard evidence of cost and clinical effectiveness, and also those of the

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______________________________________________________________ academy where membership is increasingly related to particular kinds of research capacity. Although nursing is gaining a foothold in the academy, efforts to secure its position are continually threatened. This is in part because of the privileging of clinical trials-based research and the marginalisation of other types of research seen as less reliable or valid. As we can see from Penny’s encounter with Henry, though, scientific evaluation of some elements of Penny’s work through randomized controlled trials would not have been feasible, and thus hard evidence of her overall clinical effectiveness would be difficult to produce. This means that the scientific discourse is inadequate for expressing the full significance of nursing work, a situation that serves to undermine nursing’s position in the academy. It is through the partnership between clinical practice and the academy, though, that the contemporary language of nursing is being produced, so undermining of its position there also undermines this effort. It is also apparent from the two nurse-patient encounters referred to here that much of the work that nurses do is not amenable to quantification; it is therefore difficult to determine its overall cost effectiveness, and thus to express its relevance in economic and managerialist terms. Nevertheless, without an explanatory language that incorporates aspects of mangerialism and biomedicine (and we argue that it is possible to understand some dimensions of nursing work in these terms), nursing risks surrendering to others the responsibility for determining its role, with the associated risk that more and more less skilled and cheaper workers will replace registered nurses, arguably disadvantaging those in need of care.8 More importantly, although such terms as care, holism and expert nurse have been important in the historical development of the profession,9 it is crucial now for this vocabulary to be enriched and expanded. Nelson and Gordon argue that the meaning of care in nursing has become obscured by recent changes in the way it is being delivered, although nurses continue to use the word indiscriminately as a descriptor of what they do.10 One possible explanation for this, Nelson and Gordon claim, ‘is that the holistic rhetoric that dominates so much of nursing discourse means that it is almost impossible for nurses to talk about their work in any other way.’11 We agree, and argue that, because of the fogginess surrounding the discourse of holism – and the related assumption that the term itself is self-explanatory – the descriptor holistic nursing care only serves to obfuscate the real and varied nature of nursing knowledge and practice. Much has been written of late about the meaning of care in nursing, and, for the most part, this work focuses on the nature of the nurse-patient relationship.12 Nelson and Gordon are critical of these debates because of the emphasis they place on the interpersonal domain at the expense of the scientific and technical realm of nursing practice, an emphasis that reflects nursing’s obsession with

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______________________________________________________________ differentiating itself from scientific medicine. They stress the need for nurses to ‘reclaim their scientific and medical knowledge, without apology, without it being considered the sign of an ‘uncaring nurse’ or a wannabe doctor.’13 Certainly, we argue here that, given that a central dimension of nursing work involves bridging the divide between scientific and lay experiences of illness,14 medical science is intrinsically a significant component of nursing knowledge. At times it may be interpreted and used in ways that differ from medical understandings, but it is clear that Penny’s encounter with Henry is informed by her biomedical understanding of his situation, as well as by her psychological, sociological and specifically nursing-based interpretations of what is going on. If the ‘complex matrix’15 of nursing practice is to be widely understood, then explanations must needs encompass all of these dimensions of practice. Our research work with community nurses and cancer patients has thrown into stark relief for us what we now argue is the central pillar of nursing work – an overriding concern with, and a capacity to effectively address, the immediacy and complexity of each patient’s experience of illness. Towards the end of her post-encounter interview, Penny stated that she was ‘a little annoyed’ that Henry had not been referred to the community nursing service earlier. He had been ‘known to palliative care’ for some time, but the nursing service had only been called in when it was clear that Henry would die within weeks or even days. Penny explained that this often happens and in her view it limits the effectiveness of the care she can provide: ‘It just means that you can’t get everything in place for them when it’s such a short time … getting all these other services involved … takes … time, and if we had had this man two months ago, it would have made things a lot easier now’. Penny also stated that Henry’s doctor had prescribed a particular medication for pain relief that was to be taken four hourly. She quickly realized that his wife was unable to manage the administration of this medication and that Henry himself was having difficulty sitting up in bed until 10pm to take that dose. Penny immediately organized for the medication to be changed to one that would be more appropriate for their particular situation: ‘It was just really not good for them … I think most complications … can be worked out, they can be simplified. I just think it takes a little bit of thought to simplify things for [particular] people’. In both of these instances, Penny is alluding to the value of nurses being there for patients and their families, the importance of being immersed in the proximity of that particular patient’s experience, so that complex assessments and judgments can be made to ensure that optimum, individualized care is delivered. Although she does not express it in these terms, Penny is alluding to the importance of knowing a patient, not in relation to their personal life or dreams, but, rather, through ‘learning about

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______________________________________________________________ the physical and emotional dimensions of [their] illness … how [they] responded to treatment and managed complex … regimens, and discerning what resources [they] would need’.16 As Weinberg points out, this kind of knowing is a professional not a personal activity, and it produces information that critically informs both medical and lay (personal) decisions about how to manage the situation. As Aiken and her colleagues have observed, ‘nurses are the early warning and early intervention system in … many … health care institutions,’17 a claim strongly supported in the data from our research. In his moving account of his personal experience of abject terror in response to his cancer diagnoses, Ian Craib, a British sociologist and psychoanalyst, argued that ‘the proximity of the experience of which [he] was trying to make sense’18 sharply emphasised for him the inadequacy of existing sociological analyses of illness. He argued that ‘there is a tendency for sociologists to distort or suppress the complexity of experience precisely by trying to make sociological sense of it.’19 Our research brought home to us the crucial role that registered nurses play as they work with patients and their families immersed in the immediacy of their situations. Tracey’s daily visits to Danielle’s home (ostensibly to administer an injection), her watchful, concerned presence in Danielle’s life, enabled her to be anticipate problems and also to respond to subtle changes in family dynamics and emotional needs. As Lawler argues, this level of ‘availability’ is not of interest to economic or scientific models of care.20 Nevertheless, as our research demonstrates, it is of interest to, and in the interests of, vulnerable, at-risk patients. For the nurses involved in our research, this ‘availability’ often meant working with patients’ and their families’ fears and anxieties about dying and death. None of the nurses we observed shied away from the proximity of these experiences; on the contrary, many of them, as we saw with Penny, deliberately created safe social spaces for the expression of such fears. It was clear to us that Penny and Henry and his family all thought Penny’s actions were appropriate and effective. The issue for nursing, though, is to convince others that this work matters and that it is directly associated with optimum patient and family outcomes. 7.

Conclusion We have argued here that the position of registered nurses at the proverbial bedside is under threat (at least in the western world) as a result of far reaching health care reforms, that this situation constitutes an existential crisis for the profession, and that the failure of nursing to articulate the value of its knowledge base underpins this crisis. Our research, and that of others, demonstrates that nursing knowledge fundamentally differs from that of other health care workers, that it is complex both in its own right and in the ways in which it incorporates other disciplinary knowledges into its own, and that its

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______________________________________________________________ central pillar is a finely tuned concern with the immediacy of the patient’s experience of illness. Our research also shows that neither patients and their families nor nurses themselves as yet have a language available to them that can effectively explain the complex nature of nursing work, or indeed its relevance for patient outcomes. In our view, nursing will only be able to maintain and strengthen its position at the bedside if it can enrich its (inter)disciplinary language through research that renders visible – and helps to explain – the complexities involved in comprehensive nursing care. The stakes are high for nursing, but, as nurses themselves know but seem unable to explain, the stakes are also high for health care consumers. There is an ever-present danger today that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater, a situation that we argue is in all of our interests to forestall. The challenge for nursing, then, is to convince a multitude of others that the danger is real.

Notes 1. S. Forsyth & H. McKenzie, ‘A Comparative Analysis of Contemporary Nurses’ Discontents’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 56 (2), 2006, pp. 209-216. L. Cowin, ‘The Nursing Shortage: Part Way down the Slippery Slope’, Collegian, vol. 10 (3), 2003, pp. 31-35. M. Duddle & M. Boughton, ‘Intraprofessional Relations in Nursing’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 59 (1), 2007, pp. 29-37. 2. S Nelson, S Gordon & M McGillon, ‘Saving the Practice – Top 10 Unfinished Issues to Inform the Nursing Debate in the New Millennium’, Nursing Inquiry, vol. 9 (2), 2002, pp. 63-4. 3. ibid., p. 64. 4. R. Dingwall & D. Allen, ‘The Implications of Health Care Reforms for the Profession of Nursing’, Nursing Inquiry, vol. 8 (2), 2001, pp 64-74. H. Gibb, ‘Reform in Public Health: Where does it take Nursing?’, Nursing Inquiry, vol. 5, 1998, pp. 258-67. J. Parker, ‘Patient or Customer? Caring Practices in Nursing and the Global Supermarket of Car’, Collegian, vol. 6(1), 1989, pp. 16-23. J. Lawler, ‘Knowing the Body and Embodiment: Methodologies, Discourses and Nursing’, in The Body in Nursing: A collection of Views, J. Lawler (ed), Churchill Livingstone, South Melbourne, 1997, pp 31-51. 5. P. Benner & J. Wrubel, The Primacy of Caring: Stress and Coping in Health and Illness, Menlo-Park California, Addison-Wesley, 1989. Lawler, op. cit. 6. Lawler, op cit., p 49. 7. H. McKenzie, M Boughton, L. Hayes, .S. Forsyth, M. Davies, E. Underwood & P. McVey, ‘A Sense of Security for Cancer Patients at Home:

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______________________________________________________________ the Role of Community Nurses’, Journal of Health & Social Care in the Community, vol. 15 (4), 2007, pp. 352-359. 8. S. Gordon, Nursing against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care, Cornell University of Press, New York, 2005, p.10. 9. Benner, op. cit. 10. S. Nelson & S. Gordon, The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered, Cornell University Press, New York, 2006. 11. ibid., p. 6. 12. R. Dingwall & D. Allen, ‘The Implications of Healthcare Reforms for the Profession of Nursing’, Nursing Inquiry, vol. 8 (2), 2001, pp. 64-74. B. Hagerty & K. Patusky, ‘Reconceptualizing the Nurse-Patient Relationships’, Journal of Nursing Scholarships, vol. 35 (2), 2003, pp. 145-150. 13. Nelson & Gordon, op. cit., p.190. 14. Forsyth & McKenzie, op. cit. McKenzie et al, op cit. 15. S. Aranda & R. Brown, ‘You Don’t Want to Stay Here: Surgical Nursing and the Disappearance of Patient Recovery Time’, in The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered, S. Gorden & S. Nelson (eds), Cornell University Press, New York, 2006, p.140. 16. D.B. Weinberg, ‘Pride and Prejudice: Nurses’ Struggle with Reasoned Debate’, in The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered, S. Gorden & S. Nelson (eds), Cornell University Press, New York, 2006. 17. S. Gordon, Nursing against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care, Cornell University of Press, New York, 2005. 18. I Craib, ‘Fear, death and sociology’, Mortality, vol 8(3), 2003, p. 287. 19. ibid. 20. Lawler, op. cit.

Bibliography Aranda, S. & Brown, R., ‘You Don’t Want to Stay Here: Surgical Nursing and the Disappearance of Patient Recovery Time’. In The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered. Gordon, S. & Nelson, S. (eds), Cornell University Press, New York, 2006. Benner, P. & Wrubel, J., The Primacy of Caring: Stress and Coping in Health and Illness. Menlo-Park California, Addison-Wesley, 1989. Cowin, L., ‘The Nursing Shortage: Part Way down the Slippery Slope’, Collegian, vol. 10 (3), 2003, pp. 31-35. Craib, I., ‘Fear, Death and Sociology’, Mortality, vol. 8 (3), 2003, pp. 285295.

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______________________________________________________________ Dingwall, R. & Allen, D., ‘The Implications of Healthcare Reforms for the Profession of Nursing’, Nursing inquiry, vol. 8(2), 2001, pp. 64-74. Duddle, M. & Boughton, M., ‘Intraprofessional Relations in Nursing’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 59 (1), 2007, pp. 29-37. Forsyth, S. & McKenzie, H., ‘A Comparative Analysis of Contemporary Nurses’ Discontents’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 56 (2), 2006, pp. 209-216. Gordon, S., Nursing against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting. Cornell University of Press, New York, 2005. Gordon, S. & Nelson, S., The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered. Cornell University Press, New York, 2006. Hagerty, B. & Patusky, K., ‘Reconceptualizing the Nurse-Patient Relationships’, Journal of Nursing Scholarships, vol. 35 (2), 2003, pp. 145-150. Lawler, J., ‘Knowing the Body and Embodiment: Methodologies, Discourses and Nursing’, in The Body in Nursing: A collection of Views, J. Lawler (ed), Churchill Livingstone, South Melbourne, 1997, pp 3151. McKenzie, H., Boughton, M., Hayes, L., Forsyth, S., Davies, M., Underwood, E., & McVey, P., ‘A Sense of Security for Cancer Patients at Home: The Role of Community Nurses’, Journal of Health & Social Care in the Community, vol. 15 (4), 2007, pp 352359. Nelson, S., Gordon, S. & McGillon, M., ‘Saving the Practice – Top 10 Unfinished Issues to Inform the Nursing Debate in the New Millennium’, Nursing Inquiry, vol. 9 (2), 2002, pp. 63-64. Weinberg, D. B., ‘Pride and Prejudice: Nurses’ Struggle with Reasoned Debate’, in The Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered. Gordon, S & Nelson, S., (eds), Cornell University Press, New York, 2006.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors Craig Collins is a Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of New England, NSW, Australia. Grant Duncan is a Senior Lecturer based in the School of Social and Cultural Studies at Massey University, New Zealand. Mireta von Gerlach completed her doctorate at the Karl-EberhardUniversiteat in Tuebingen, Germany in 2006.

She is now based in

Berlin. Stephen Healy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Science and International Studies at the University of New South Wales, and coordinates the Environmental Studies and History and Philosophy of Science Programs. Catherine Manathunga is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education with a joint appointment in the Teaching and Educational Development Institute and the UQ Graduate School at the University of Queensland, Australia. John McDonald is an Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Health Research and Practice at the University of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Heather McKenzie, Maureen Boughton, Lillian Hayes, & Sue Forsyth are based in The Faculty of Nursing & Midwifery, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. Ian Morley is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of History, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tai Peseta is an Associate Lecturer in the Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Sydney.

Graham Chia-Hui Preston is a Ph.D candidate in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Francine Rochford is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, La Trobe University. Mark Rolfe is a Lecturer in the School of Social and International Studies at the University of New South Wales. Matthew Steen is Policy Adviser in Tax & Competitiveness at the NSW Business Chamber. S. Ram Vemuri is a Professor in Economics in the School of Law Business of the Faculty of Law, Business and Arts at the Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia.