高等教育本体论的转向:空间、权力和技术

An Ontological Transition in Higher Education:Space,Power and Technology

当前地缘政治的发展和紧张对社会空间建构及大学和科学中的权力关系产生影响。高等教育领域的空间建构创新,是将既定的物质性、行动主体的理念以及由此发展出的社会实践三者结合的结果,其中有些社会实践成果进一步构成了该领域持续发展的物质性。“上海软科世界大学学术排名”是一个典型案例,也是中国高等教育“走出去”以转变全球大学关系的早期尝试。大学和科学领域的全球演变历经三个历史层面,并交融至当前的实践中:(1)后殖民主义的发端以及1945年《联合国宪章》与其所确立的主权国际秩序;(2)1990年以来新殖民主义在“美国治下的和平”得到加强以及美国主导的加速全球化进程;(3)在过去的15年里,随着多极化趋势的发展和中国崛起,新殖民秩序部分解体。本文进一步探讨了当前面临的重大挑战,包括人工智能在教育和研究领域的兴起(这本应成为国际合作的主题,但目前尚未实现),以及美国推动的在科学技术领域与中国“脱钩”。“脱钩”策略考虑不周,虽然它已造成干扰,但不太可能实现目标。尽管存在地缘政治因素,大学仍需探索如何在相互尊重的基础上,培育和发展合作性的全球空间。

The paper provides an overview of geopolitical developments and tensions and the impact in social space making and relations of power in universities and science.Innovations in space making in higher education combine pre-given materiality with the ideas and interpretations of agents,and the social practices they develop,some of which become part of the ongoing materiality of the sector.One example of global space making is the Academic Ranking of World Universities(the‘Shanghai Ranking’),an early example of China‘going out’in higher education so as to transform global university relations.Global evolution in universities and science has passed through three historical layers,all of which enter into current practice:(1)the beginnings of post-coloniality and the 1945 UN Charter and its sovereign international order;(2)from 1990 onwards the strengthening of neo-coloniality in Pax Americana and U.S.-led processes of accelerated globalisation;(3)in the last 15 years the partial fragmentation of the neo-colonial order amid growing multi-polarity and the rise of China.The paper expands on present issues and tensions,including the advent of AI in education and research(which should be the subject of international cooperation but is not),and the U.S.-driven closure of relations with China in science and technology.It argues that the decoupling strategy is ill conceived,and while it has been disruptive it is unlikely to achieve its goals.Despite the geopolitics universities need to find ways of nurturing and developing a cooperative global space on the basis of mutual respect.