Ultra-Neoliberalism and Higher Education: A Critical (but Hopeful) View from Brazil

Abstract

In this essay,I analyzethe educational crisis of global cognitive capitalism, focusingonthe responsibility of the University as a social institution concerned with democratic education, critical awareness,and eco-social sensibility. With this aim, first I discuss the contextof ultra-neoliberalism and its discontentsregarding economic, social, political, epistemological, and scientific macrotrends. Secondly, I introduce the case of Brazilian education and its dialectics of reproducingcycles of transgenerational power relations. Third, I proposea political agenda for education as a fundamental human right, analyzing higher education as a condition of concerned, responsible planetary citizenship. Fourth, I elaboratea conceptual agenda for the University based on epistemologies of the Global South to help overcoming authoritarian, destructive threats of ultra-neoliberalism in contemporary societies.