Globalisation and Higher Education Institutions in South Asia

The neo-liberal journey in South Asia as elsewhere is a complex process. The volume Universities as Transformative Social Spaces: Mobilities and Mobilizations from South Asian Perspectives offers a critical introduction to the proliferating scholarship on the dramatic growth and accompanying internationalisation of the higher education industry in South Asia. From the descriptive and analytical lens of this work, the university, like the modern flyovers, metros, airports, and fuel stations, constitutes the immobile and mobile infrastructure for globalisation. In a research article on the drawing power of foreign students towards the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, the researcher Claudia Baumann finds that the institution is perceived as a globally eminent place for pursuing an education in the humanities and social sciences in South Asia. Its significance transcends territorial boundedness, and the institution acts as a portal of globalisation comparable to any other elite institution from the global North.

The Neo-liberal Context