3. The Anti-Ecological University: Competitive Higher Education as Ecological Catastrophe

The article aims at critiquing the current competitive framing which is shaping higher education policies and discourse at an international level. The argument initially takes an historical and genealogical approach to trace the roots of this framing to ideological misinterpretations of evolutionary theory and ecology, and to the influence of eugenics in the framing of educational policy. The article then uses a systems theory lens to articulate the negative impact of competitive dynamics in global education on an ecosystemic level, focusing on a “deecologization” of the two dimensions of time and space in the lives of university students and staff. Finally, the article concludes suggesting the necessity of an imaginative reecologization of thought as a precondition for any sustainable change in Higher Education philosophy and policy.