Higher education is trapped in a competition fetish
Competition has colonised our world. Everywhere we go, every step we take we hear the siren call of competition. In higher education, too, we are trapped in a competition fetish.
Drawing on insights from anthropology, political economy and psychoanalysis, I deploy the term fetish to describe a belief in something that has the power to make our desires come true. It can also protect us from harm.
From political economy, the fetishisation of commodities refers to screening the underlying relations of production and translating relations between people into connections between things. From psychoanalysis, we find a two-fold displacement that conceals while giving meaning to a substitute object. The fetish has the power to deny, to invoke fear and to enthral.
Competition has colonised our world. Everywhere we go, every step we take we hear the siren call of competition. In higher education, too, we are trapped in a competition fetish.
Drawing on insights from anthropology, political economy and psychoanalysis, I deploy the term fetish to describe a belief in something that has the power to make our desires come true. It can also protect us from harm.
From political economy, the fetishisation of commodities refers to screening the underlying relations of production and translating relations between people into connections between things. From psychoanalysis, we find a two-fold displacement that conceals while giving meaning to a substitute object. The fetish has the power to deny, to invoke fear and to enthral.
