CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

"Playing the Game" in the Context of Globalisation: The New Political Economy of Higher Education

Organisers: Wes Shumar

Brayboy, Bryan McKinley (University of Utah, USA) PLAYING THE GAME AND WINNING?: INDIGENOUS TRIBAL NATION'S STUDENTS' AND COMMUNITY USE OF IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITIES TOWARD EMPOWERMENT AND LIBERATION
Drawing from a seven-year longitudinal ethnographic study, this paper examines the "games people play" and how the 'underdogs'-in this case, tribal nations-make sense of the rules in universities and the skills and credentials gained there. The paper is based on the following two questions: 1). How are Indigenous tribal nations utilizing the skills and credentials gained at Ivy League universities toward visions of empowerment, liberation, and self-determination? 2). What are the individual and community costs and benefits of playing a game where others make up the rules? Building on Bourdieu's (1986) concept of the "embodied state" of cultural capital-by which he means educational credentials-I will examine the ways that American Indian individuals and their tribal governments use skills and credentials earned at Ivy League universities for self-determination and empowerment. The use of these credentials toward empowerment for Indigenous tribal nations is particularly interesting in light of their quasi-sovereign status as nations. Many of these nations are moving from industrial models of operation and employment to ones driven by information and knowledge-based economic endeavors. The fight for the legal use and control of their natural resources relies directly on the skills and credentials earned in institutions of higher education (Bourdieu's embodied state) in realizing their larger social, political, and economic goals of self-determination and tribal autonomy. Additionally, these tribal nations push the boundaries of what it means to be "global" because of their governmental status and the manner in which they position themselves regarding other nations. With the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), Indigenous tribal nations are creating ways to compete in a global economy that values capitalist production and consumption. The individuals and tribal nations discussed in this paper will ultimately speak to and about strategies, costs, and benefits for being politically and economically competitive in global markets. Ultimately, this paper lays out some of the consequences of individuals and tribal nations "playing a game" where the stakes are for the survival of their nation, culture, and economic well being.

Brandt, Carol (University of New Mexico, USA) SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE AND AMERICAN INDIAN STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: PLAYING THE GAME IN MOLECULAR RESEARCH
In the past ten years, the pace of research in molecular biology has accelerated to an amazing speed. Faculty and students now participate in a global conversation, sharing data with colleagues on an international scale. For students in higher education, the stakes of learning the 'game rules' (Lyotard, 1984) of scientific discourse are higher than ever. Universities are now key players in the global politics and the power of genomic research, competing with corporations for control and access to molecular data. In this ethnographic case study research, American Indian students share their experiences in grasping the game rules of communication in a molecular biology laboratory. This qualitative research explores how six students gain the discursive resources and cultural capital needed to participate in molecular biology. Following Bourdieu (1988), these insights provide a way to bring more "self-reflexivity" and awareness of the power relationships that pervade molecular research.

Luthar, Breda (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Sadl, Zdenka (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) POWER IN THE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION: WOMEN AS A PROBLEM
This paper is an attempt to explore "the hidden transcripts" of power and marginalization in the academic milieu in the so called "transitional" academic institution.The paper is based on ethnographic research and interviews with academics, between 35 and 45, in the mid of their academic careers, but in a dominated position within an organizational context which is traditionally the locus of a senior male domination. We are particularly interested into the linguistic, bodily, and communicative regimes of the front-stage regions of the academic institution (departmental and committees meetings, the institutional ritual events...) where symbolically the dominate and dominated positions are constructed and the range of legitimate identities available to academics are offered. Further, we would like to explore how the interviewees experience, reflect, subvert or support the rhetorical and interactional construction of their dominated position and radical changes in the notion of rationality that should govern the academic institution (competition, the introduction of measurement techniques to scrutinize the individuals' achievement, internationalization, globalization, the transformation of a public intellectual into a teacher-worker), which at least in Eastern Europe, developed in the nineties.

Shumar, Wesley (Drexel University, USA) FLEXIBLE WORKERS: THE STRATEGIES OF TEMPORARY FACULTY IN THE NEW UNIVERSITY
In the last two decades higher education in the United States has gone through a dramatic restructuring. Pressured by the influences of globalization and neoliberal economic policies, universities have moved to a model that Slaughter and Leslie (1997) call "academic capitalism." The entrepreneurial university focuses on instrumental concerns such as, large profit areas of research like biotechnology and the creation of inexpensive means to deliver a broad based education to name two of the many changes. These changes occur due to pressure from the Federal Government, granting agencies, large corporate interests and the business culture of academic administration. In this climate more and more university administrations are seeking to "creatively" use their non-tenure track faculty. This paper looks at the strategies of the faculty who make up the flexible workforce as they attempt to cope with the dynamic and changing landscape of teaching in an institution of higher education. This workforce is both increasingly important to many university strategies as well as a workforce that is now a permanent part of the university community and no longer thought of as an unusual moment in history. The paper will argue that this workforce is singled out for disciplinary action designed to send messages to department heads and tenure track faculty. As such, negotiating the day to day for this group of faculty becomes increasingly perilous.