A ‘topological’ approach to understand the historical role of higher education in state formation

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the field of history of education, like its allied disciplines in sociology, political science and history, has been greatly influenced by the ‘spatial turn.’ Space has become an important concept in discussions about educational governance, internationalisation, educational transfers and in understanding the complex entanglement between state formation and the rise of educational systems. New modes of conceptualising space have been introduced to meet the challenges of the persistent methodological nationalism in the discipline and to address the issue of global/local interconnectedness. Several scholars have proposed a ‘respatialisation’ based on a relational understanding of space and as a socially constructed phenomenon.

This presentation critically discusses the notions of space and place in relation to the historical role of higher education in state formation. Drawing from the work of Jeff Malpas, it will argue for a more profound understanding of place as an entity that is distinct from space and has more fundamental characteristics than is acknowledged in the current spatial discourses on educational development. The paper suggests to neither take place as merely a spatial location nor as a socially produced site, but as a bounded open structure within which social relations and networks can emerge. It discusses what this would mean for understanding the historical role of higher educational institutes in the creation of socio-economic and political complexes – taking “globalized” business management schools in India as an example.