Negotiating National Identities by Christian Karner

Author:Christian Karner [Karner, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9781317089377
Google: xMIFDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-22T05:08:50+00:00

Education, art, commodification and resistance

If calls for a re-embedding of the economy in structures of solidarity and redistribution are one manifestation of market-scepticism, opposition to the commodification of once extra-economic realms is another. This was shown in a series of protests and controversies surrounding university education: in early 2007, the SPÖ’s failure to persuade its coalition-partner to scrap tuition fees, as declared in its electoral manifesto (SPÖ 2006, 10), triggered protests in Vienna and at other universities (e.g. http://www.orf.at/ticker/241048.html; http://oesterreich.orf.at/stories/165145/; http://ooe.orf.at/stories/165486/) and grassroots disgruntlement within the SPÖ (Horaczek 2007; http://ooe.orf.at/stories/171837/). A new system whereby students could provide 60 hours of specified voluntary work (e.g. tutoring socially disadvantaged pupils) in lieu of the 363 euro semester-fees (http://www.orf.at 27 March 2007) was interpreted differently by proponents and critics.15 Yet, both responses invoked the market: to Chancellor Gusenbauer (Lackner 2007a, 22) this scheme offered social engagement and solidarity as an antidote to our era’s ‘heightened selfishness’; conversely, critics stressed that the implied hourly wage of 6 euros was half the market-rate, leading the Red Cross to fear that the scheme could inflate care-work (Wally 2007a, 33). Whilst the then Chancellor thus presented the scheme as a valuable counterweight to the widening reach of market forces, critics feared that it would further disadvantage some of those doing important but already financially under-rewarded work.

Another educational debate – between Vienna and Brussels – revealed tensions between transnational markets and ‘the nation’. In 2006 Austria introduced a quota-system for medical students, reserving 75 per cent of 1,500 available places for entrants with Austrian school-leaving certificates, 20 per cent for other EU citizens, and 5 per cent for non-EU citizens. The EU-commission objected, finding the system discriminatory and in contravention of EU regulations (http://www.orf.at/ticker/242231.html), but granted Austria until May 2007 to justify her position (http://www.orf.at/070219-9432/9433txt_story.html). The government argued, ultimately successfully,16 that quota were necessary to prevent future shortages of Austrian doctors (e.g. Profil 22 January 2007b, http://oe1.orf.at/inforadio/72909.html, http://oe1.orf.at/inforadio/73328.html). The debate thus reflected a perceived clash between an open educational market for mobile EU-citizens and a national infrastructure dependent upon permanent residence and enduring local ties.

The clearest clash between markets and educational philosophies opposed to commodification emerged in weeks of student protests in Vienna and other university cities in late 2009. Central to these protests, which included high-profile and week-long sit-ins, were calls for free access to higher education and against both a reintroduction of tuition fees and entry restrictions. The students’ slogan ‘Education, not job-training’ (Bildung statt Ausbildung) reflected a general opposition to what was seen as a growing dominance of economic interests over higher education (Brodnig and Gantner 2009). Similar resentments of universities’ alleged colonization by the demands of business manifested in protests against the ‘Bologna-process’ in March 2010: initiated in 1999, the Bologna process intended to standardize European degree structures, to facilitate greater intra-European student mobility and improve graduates’ employability; to its most vocal critics, however, it had resulted in a stifling marketization of universities (http://www.orf.at/100310-48897/index.html).

The relationship between the market and the traditionally not-fully-commodified has also been debated in relation to art and cultural production.

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