To understand the convergence of macro and micro social and cultural behaviors of our world, multidisciplinary theorists have looked to cities as a site of analysis. Within the boundaries of a ‘social city’, researchers deconstruct the ways in which complex socio-cultural processes of globalization and neoliberalism emerge, converge and reproduce power dynamics representative of our human condition. The intensifying of transnational and translocal dynamics and the growing presence and voice of specific types of socio-cultural diversity has its own specific conditionality and consequences (Sassen, 2010). Therefore, large cities are the space where multifaceted processes of globalization can be observed in concrete, localized forms (Sassen, 2010, p. 5). In Northern Philadelphia, the emergence of the knowledge-economy which is reproduced and maintained by Temple University, creates a site of production bounded by geography, race and class.
Globalization refers to the “intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens, 1991, p. 6-9 cited in Arnove, et al, 2013, p. 1). One of the major observable effects of globalization, is the change from a tangible production-economy to a knowledge-based economy (Friedman, 2005). Friedman (2005) discusses two critical neoliberal assumptions concerning education in the new knowledge-economy. The first being that labor markets are now global and it is within them that all must compete. Economic powerhouses are no longer necessarily tied to strict cartographic national boundaries, but rather expand to few transnational global networks of capitalistic power. The second assumption of the knowledge-economy is that successful competitors in these markets become such on the basis of producing innovation through knowledge (p. 230). Ideas are the products being bought, sold and traded for capital gain in these transnational markets.
Over the last 30 years, assumptions about the relationship between the state, economy and education have changed drastically. It was once assumed that the state and capitalist economy were structured in such a way that would allow for compromise between the social needs of citizens (re: public good) and the outcomes generated from the free market. Under this paradigm, knowledge produced by the university was viewed as for the ‘public good’ and was generally removed from private industry (Sandmann & Kliewer, 2012, p. 23). However, as neoliberal policies such as privatization, deregulation and the decline of the ‘welfare state’, increased, capitalist market principles found their way into higher education.
In the globalized knowledge-economy, neoliberal market principles have influenced colleges and universities, allowing these institutions to act as capitalist enterprises. Under such a system, the ultimate aim of higher education is to increase capital from faculty-driven innovation and investing in business ventures developed form such faculty ideas (Slaughter & Rhodes, 2000, p. 5). Thus, a key feature in what Slaughter and Rhodes (2000) refer to as ‘academic capitalism’ is that knowledge is no longer a public good but rather, a private commodity. Institutions of higher education are increasingly becoming suppliers and marketers of knowledge, and students are increasingly treated as customers of such knowledge (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). For example, it has been noted that research agendas that promote a broad conception of the public good have started receiving less financial support than research with more potential commercial value (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Moreover, students are increasingly treated as the financiers of innovation, as characterized by a decrease in public funding (re: disinvestment by the state) offset by increases in tuition. This altered relationship between knowledge and its consumers also marks changes in the way we observe the relationship between an institution of higher education in its surrounding city.
Urban research universities, such as Temple, distinguish themselves as different from their land-grant counterparts by their mission statements. In 1876, the first president of John Hopkins University, America’s first modern urban research university, expressed that American universities should, “make for less misery among the poor, less ignorance in the schools, less bigotry in the temple, less suffering in the hospital, less fraud in business and less folly in politics” (Harkavy, 1998, p. 4 cited in Martin, et al., 2005). Temple University’s mission echos this goal, in part, by asserting that its ties to the community “…are strong and deep, dating back to its founding in 1888 as an institution that served working people in the local community. Today, the university has not strayed from its original mission and remains a beacon of public service, social activism and community engagement”. (Bulletin, 2017). Despite these well-intentioned goals, historically, colleges and universities have had a mixed record when it comes to promoting the best interests of their surrounding communities (Carr, 2002 as cited in Martin, et al., 2005). It is paradoxical to believe that in the knowledge-economy an institution today can be driven on such altruistic goals.
In addition to expressing an identity associated with being a site of production for the knowledge-economy, colleges and universities have historically expressed and (re)produced an identity of whiteness. Discourses in higher educational spaces function in a way that privileges whiteness insofar as it becomes an identity worth knowing and performing (Schick, 2002). The idea of who belongs to a college or university based on identity markers, such as performances of whiteness, can be a major source of tension between faculty and students (those who represent the university) and the university’s surrounding residents, who for a variety of reasons, may not have real or symbolic entrance to the university.
Institutional performative expectations can have negative impacts on their relationships with communities, especially those that have historically been marginalized or lack certain levels of social capital necessary for full participation in the institution (Sandmann & Kliewer, 2012, p. 22). As Barth (1969) demonstrates, boundaries between oneself and others are maintained through social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby categories are maintained despite individuals changing participation and membership in a given group over time. Institutions of higher education, regardless of their missions of community engagement, continue to hold on to social and cultural boundaries that define their role as gatekeepers and disseminators of knowledge (Sandmann & Weerts, 2008, p. 183). These boundaries, set and maintained by the college or university, fixes their position of power within the knowledge-economy and holds their place as the center of production within the innovation marketspace.
Agency expressed by members of a perceived ostracized community, can be observed in the ways in which they interact with members of the institution. For example, on February 17, 2017, I conducted a non-structured interview with an African-American female who is a former Temple student and graduated several year ago. The informant, who will be referred to as “Tara” expressed that she lived in the Cecil B. Moore neighborhood of North Philadelphia and related to the residents based on growing up in a neighborhood with similar economic and social markers in Washington, D.C.. However, when residents learned she was a Temple student, the relationship changed. As Tara recounted,
“But I was trying to do something different and that’s when the problems started. The neighbors be messing with us and shit – me and my roommate. We rented this house near campus…The whole neighborhood was black and the guy who owned the house was black. They wouldn’t mess with the house because they all knew the owner but when they found out I went to Temple, they started messing with me. They saw me like one of them and I am one of them. Until one night these group of guys saw me come home late with a book in my hand…[T]hey asked what I was studying and I said, ‘I don’t know’ and then they asked if I went to Temple and I said ‘yeah’ and that’s when the problems started. But I ain’t no Pollyanna with black skin, you know? They didn’t know that I was really one of them”.
As demonstrated in this example, when neighbors recognized Tara as identifying with the university, the relationship turned negative thus solidifying a social boundary between her and her neighbors. Moreover, Tara believed that once the neighbors associated her with the university, she was no longer identified as a member of the African-American community, but rather as a “Pollyanna with black skin” – a play on the cultural expectations of whiteness at a university. Tara expressed feelings of frustration and betrayal, as she perceived herself identifying both as a member of the neighborhood and as a Temple student. Her frustration in not being socially permitted to express both identities can be seen also from this statement:
“It was like, ‘y’all don’t know me at all’! I was in the Black Student Union, we did protests all the time, we were always in the community. It was more like ‘who’s side are you on?’instead of being happy that I was furthering my education”.
Sentiments such as the above comment, illustrate how cultural boundaries are not fluid in that one cannot express two competing identities at once. In other words, Tara was not socially permitted to perform both a student identity and a black community member identity in the neighborhood.
Tara acknowledged the disconnect between the physical space of the university and the neighborhood in which it technically resided. Interestingly, inside the university, Tara saw her role as one who had to perform both a student identity and be someone who had to relate to the surrounding African-American community. Tara discussed:
“There was not a physical boundary but there was a physical boundary. If you didn’t go to Temple, you didn’t set foot on campus. Neighborhood kids would harass the white students and it would have to take me to shut it down. You know, ‘I’m older than you, you be acting a type of way and I’m telling you to stop because I’m one of you’. Temple has not acknowledged them as part of the city so they act up…[T]hat’s what I mean, there wasn’t a physical boundary but there was a boundary and certain people were allowed on campus and a certain type of people weren’t. It was for appearances”.
Such relationships between an institution of higher education and the surrounding community as illustrated here, demonstrate that identity markers such as class, race and insider versus outsider status, can impact and inform perceptions of belonging. Understanding how the city and its institution of higher education socially and culturally interact with each other is imperative to deconstructing the social, political and cultural consequences of today’s knowledge-economy. Mission statements of urban research universities, often fail to acknowledge the inherent power structures of their own institutions via their place in the knowledge-economy as drivers and benefactors of innovation. Thus, any mission that sees the university as a partner in ‘solving urban social problems’ must take into account the role that social and cultural boundaries play in relationships with the local community.
References
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Schick, C. (2002). Keeping the ivory tower white: Discourses of racial domination. In S. H. Razack (Ed.), Race, space and the law: Unmapping a white settler society (99-119). Toronto: Between the Lines.
Temple University (2017). Bulletin 2016-2017. Retrieved from http://bulletin.temple.edu/undergraduate/about-temple-university
Hoods, Schools, and People 