Modern global imaginaries, modern subjects, enduring hierarchical relations and other possibilities

Abstract

This paper discusses selected dispositions and characteristics of the modern liberal/Cartesian subject observed in students’ responses to a survey on internationalization of higher education in Canada. The data on which this paper draws is part of a larger database of surveys, interviews, policy analyses and case studies that were developed within the framework of the Ethical Internationalization in Higher Education (EIHE) research project. The EIHE project was funded by the Finnish Academy of Science and was conducted between 2012-2016. This paper draws on three key findings from the responses of students (1451) of seven participating Canadian universities to present a broader (theoretical) context that could be inferred from what was observed in the data. For this purpose the paper first discusses some of the theories related to the existence and prevalence of the modern global imaginary that could be considered as a meta-framework under which such relations between the (modern) subject and his/her Other are normalized. In the next step it draws on psychoanalytical strands of decolonial and postcolonial critiques of the modern subject in an attempt to sketch some of problematic (and often unacknowledged) characteristics of the modern liberal/Cartesian subject that lead to constant re-production of binary hierarchical relations grounded on epistemic violence and privilege.