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Beyond Higher Education as We Know it: Gesturing Towards Decolonial Horizons of Possibility

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Abstract

This article addresses the conceptual challenges of articulating the ethical–political limits of ‘higher education as we know it’, and the practical challenges of exploring alternative formations of higher education that are unimaginable from within the dominant imaginary of the higher education field. This article responds to the contemporary conjuncture in which possible futures have been significantly narrowed, and yet these possibilities also appear increasingly unsustainable and unethical. It invites scholars of higher education to rethink the epistemological and ontological frames within which most imaginaries and institutions of higher education are embedded. If we fail to denaturalize these frames, then efforts to pluralize possible higher education futures will risk reproducing existing conceptual limitations and enduring colonial harms.

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Notes

  1. I derive my understanding of “onto-epistemological” from decolonial critique, particularly that of Silva (2007, 2014), rather than from new materialist scholarship. This term seeks to capture how epistemology and ontology are intertwined in ways that shape the conditions of knowledge and existence.

  2. As Simpson (2014) notes, “Kwezens literally means ‘little woman’ and is used to mean girl” (p. 2).

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  1. Department of School Psychology and Educational Leadership, College of Education, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, USA

    Sharon Stein

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  1. Sharon Stein
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Correspondence to Sharon Stein.

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Stein, S. Beyond Higher Education as We Know it: Gesturing Towards Decolonial Horizons of Possibility. Stud Philos Educ 38, 143–161 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-018-9622-7

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