Critical Perspectives on Neoliberal Globalization, Development and Education in Africa and Asia

229 Pages·2011·1.39 MB·English

by  Dip Kapoor

CRITICALPERSPECTIVESONNEOLIBERALGLOBALIZATION,DEVELOPMENTAND
EDUCATIONINAFRICAANDASIA

Critical Perspectives on Neoliberal
Globalization, Development and
Education in Africa and Asia
Editedby
DipKapoor
UniversityofAlberta,Canada
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii

Introduction vix
Dip Kapoor

A. Policy/Theoretical Perspectives

1. The Neo-Liberal Agenda and the IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment
Programs with Reference to Africa
Gloria Emeagwali 3

2. Neoliberal Globalization, Science Education and Indigenous African Knowledges
Edward Shizha 15

3. Learning in Struggle, Sharing Knowledge: Building Resistance to Bilateral FTAs
Aziz Choudry 33

4. On Learning How to Liberate the Common: Subaltern Biopolitics and the
Endgame of Neoliberalism
Sourayan Mookerjea 51

5. Neoliberal Globalization, Saffron Fundamentalism and Dalit Poverty and
Educational Prospects in India
Dip Kapoor 69

6. Gendered Globalization: A Re-Examination of the Changing Roles of Women
in Africa
Sidonia Alenuma-Nimoh & Loramy Christine Gerstbauer 87

B. Case Studies

Formal Contexts of Education

7. Understanding the Crisis in Higher Education in Zimbabwe: Critical Explorations
Munyaradzi Hwami 103

8. Neoliberal Globalization, Multilateral Development Agencies and HIV and AIDs
Education in South Africa: Looking Back to Look Ahead
Faisal Islam & Claudia Mitchell 121

9. Globalization, Media and Youth Identity in Pakistan
Al Karim Datoo 135

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contexts of Adult Learning/Education, Community Development and/or Social Action

10. Social Movement Learning in Ghana: Communal Defense of Resources in
Neoliberal Times
Jonathan Langdon 153

11. Critical Perspectives on Development and Learning in Community Action
in Bangladesh and Thailand
Bijoy Barua 171

12. Development Cooperation and Learning from Power in Senegal
Blane Harvey 187

Author Biographies 207

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A collection of readings on any subject is only possible through the willing effort
of several contributors – I am extremely grateful to the colleagues and friends who
have seen fit to share their research and reflections on the subject at hand in this
joint contribution. Your prompt attention, enthusiasm and critical commentary are
greatly appreciated and I sincerely hope that each of you is pleased with the results.

I am also grateful to Otto von Feigenblatt, Editor in Chief, of the Journal of
Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences for the initial impetus and
confidence in a project to advance scholars and critical scholarship from/about the
African and Asian regions. In the process of developing these chapters, several
colleagues/professors have had a part to play in reviewing manuscripts and I wish
to acknowledge them, while taking final responsibility for these inclusions: Dr.
Steven Jordan (McGill University, Canada), Dr. Njoki Wane (Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada), Dr. Anthony Paré (McGill
University, Canada), Dr. Aziz Choudry (McGill University, Canada), Dr. Sourayan
Mookerjea (University of Alberta, Canada), Dr. Bijoy Barua (East West
University, Bangladesh), Dr. Edward Shizha (Wilfred Laurier University, Canada)
Dr. Samuel Veissière (University College of the North, Canada), Dr. Amin
Alhassan (York University, Canada), Dr. Farid Panjwani (Aga Khan University,
Pakistan), Dr. Dia DaCosta (Queens University, Canada), Dr. Brenda Spencer
(University of Alberta), Dr. Janice Wallace (University of Alberta) and Dr. David
Smith (University of Alberta).

After the publication of Education, Decolonization and Development in Africa,
Asia and the Americas in 2009, it has been a pleasure to work with Peter de Liefde
and Sense Publishers once again – Peter’s personable approach, quiet
encouragement and reasoned-flexibility are hard to come by in the publishing
business. Thanks again Peter. Last but not least, I am extremely grateful but again
to Alison Crump (Doctoral Student, Department of Integrated Studies in
Education, McGill University, Canada) for her vigilant editorial support and for
literally making herself instantly available for this project at all times. Thanks
Alison!

Dip

vii

INTRODUCTION
Dip Kapoor, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Policy
Studies, University of Alberta, Canada
The global re-structuring of education or the globalization of an Euro-American
modernizing-education wedded to and shaped by the neocolonial political-
economic and cultural interests of capital reproduced by the UN (including the
World Bank), corporatized-states and dominant civil society actors (educational
international non-governmental organizations or INGOs) has been variously
acknowledged and referenced in the scholarship addressing globalization and
education in the field of comparative and international education (for an overview
of perspectives and dominant literatures, see for example, Joel Spring, 2009).
This collection of readings is a modest contribution towards critical scholarship
that acknowledges the colonial and imperial trajectories (Dirlik, 2004; Escobar,
1995; Fanon, 1963; Guha, 1997; McMichael, 2009; Mignolo, 2000; Mudimbe,
1988; Nandy, 1983, 1987; Quijano, 2008) that constitute what are now described as
the globalization and development projects (McMichael, 2007) of the 20th and 21st
century and their attendant education/learning interventions (the globalization of
education or World Education Inc.), i.e., the on-going reproduction of “the global
designs of Euro-American local histories” (Mignolo, 2007, p.159). Given the post-
independence foundational project of inter/national development (in the “post-
colonial Third World”) and the most recent wave of globalization (i.e., the
globalization of capitalism or neoliberal globalization), contributors to this
collection have attempted to give due consideration to examining
education/learning in relation to the social, political, religio-cultural and/or
economic trajectories unleashed by these global projects and their neo/colonial,
internal colonial and imperial implications for the peoples of these regions,
including related resistances, reformulations or alternatives for renewal and local
continuity. We examine these trends and their implications for and in the African
and Asian regional contexts with the view to augment and compound similar and
recent critical analyses focused on globalization, development and
education/learning concerning these locations (Abdi, Puplampu & Dei, 2006; Abdi
& Kapoor, 2008; Kapoor, 2009; Kapoor & Shizha, 2010).
The decision to bring African and Asian-specific analyses together was
prompted by: (i) a dearth of critical scholarship (especially in terms of critical-
colonial analysis) addressing education and globalization/development in these
regions; (ii) the need to continue to develop critical education-centered scholarship
of this ilk pertaining to both these regions simultaneously (introductory cross-
regional research that still requires treatment), with the possibility that readers
might begin to decipher similar trends and tendencies in both regions, while
recognizing differences and specificities peculiar to the regions, cultures, colonial
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