The Managerialization of International Collaboration: The Silencing of Social Justice Solidarity

There is an extensive literature on the process of “overmanagerialization of academic work” (Todd, et al 2013). Academics’ programs that continue to engage on progressive issues such as social justice or global solidarity face difficulties in negotiating the disjunction of the entrepreneurial university and solidarity of international collaboration.  “Internationalization” of programs has become a buzz idea that most universities in North America are pursuing, but the question remains “What kind of Internationalization? And who is benefiting from this process?”

Using Institutional Ethnography, this presentation discusses the negotiation process with which the author has become involved with in the development and implementation of an “international Youth Right project” during the past two years.   The author discusses the steps taken to textually transform the ‘local realities’ of the everyday experience of youth advocating for the protection of their rights into textual instruments of control -financial, managerial as relations of rulings  that reflect the managerial realities of the Northern institutions (the entrepreneurial university and its funders).  Through mapping out the different “project managements processes” required to develop and implement international projects within the entrepreneurial university context, this presentation will discuss the disjunction of local realities of those who are supposed to benefit from this kind of project –children and youth and the institutions that are supposed to manage them .   

The following questions are discussed:  What challenges children and Youth face in achieving their rights? What are the consequences of extremely legalistic discourses of rights on the everyday living experiences of youth in the Global South?  How is the manegerialization of international collaboration within university context affecting the everyday practices of solidarity?