Conference Agenda

Universities find themselves in a precarious situation in which they know much but act otherwise, often succumbing to local and global social, political, and economic pressures. In practice, this means that whilst these educational organisations adopt the vocabulary of inclusion, decolonisation and diversity, the praxis remains superficial, failing to dismantle the underlying coloniality of power that governs institutional structures. This symposium addresses this critical gap between theoretical awareness and material transformation by exploring how universities perpetuate colonial logics in and through organisational dynamics. The common thread between the presentations is the tension between neoliberal metrics and authentic sovereignty.

Andrew Wambua, from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, South Africa, in his presentation, highlights how universities in Africa struggle to operationalise “Uhuru” where degree structure, content and research methodologies remain tethered to Eurocentric frameworks despite political independence. Israa Medhat Tawfik Esmat, from Philip Marburg University in Germany, highlights tensions from an Egyptian context and discusses how university faculty navigate neoliberal policy discourses that construct specific academic subjectivities and constrain imaginaries of what it means to be a good academic. Marcina Singh, a researcher from the Netherlands, contemplates how the rise of AI and learning analytics further complicates this landscape because these tools can function as digital panopticons or digital colonisers. Flagging students as “at risk” becomes a reductionist exercise that pathologises them through algorithmic deficit modelling. The paper highlights that organisational unlearning is imperative if we are to establish socially just institutions.

Eva Bulgrin and Marie Winters’ presentation applies a decolonial, post-migrant lens to view Germany as a migrant society where migration is a normal structural feature, not an exception. The study, part of a funded project on attracting and retaining non-traditional students in technical programmes, uses website analysis, interviews, and participatory “future labs” to examine cultures, power/knowledge, and subject positions in GreenTec programmes. It finds that despite inclusion goals, universities still centre white, male norms, with limited organisational learning and a persistent gap between critical knowledge and actual decision-making.

The collective findings underscore a profound organisational learning gap, where the persistence Eurocentric norms reveals a systemic resistance to authentic transformation despite the adoption of decolonial rhetoric. Linking these diverse contexts is the urgent need for universities to delink from neoliberal and digital panopticons, transforming organisational dynamics from sites of surveillance into spaces of sovereignty and social justice. Overall, the symposium acknowledges acting otherwise as an organisational imperative, and we can do this by delinking from these extractive infrastructures and shifting from coloniality and surveillance to a justice-oriented model.

Despite achieving political sovereignty, African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) continue to operate within Eurocentric pedagogical and structural frameworks that have yet to realise full Uhuru (independence). This presentation explores the urgent need for decolonial thinking within the academy, positing that current degree structures, research methodologies, and institutional hierarchies remain tethered to colonial legacies. The presentation argues for a paradigm shift that centres African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS) and the core philosophies of Harambee (collective effort), Umoja (unity), and Ubuntu/Umunthu (humanity through others) as foundational academic pillars. The diversity of the African continent – with its myriad languages, norms, and values – is the academy's greatest pedagogical strength (Webb, Khau, & Ssentamu, 2024). However, this diversity faces a modern existential threat: the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Within the context of higher education, AI risks becoming a digital coloniser that could obliterate African languages and indigenous ways of knowing, further entrenching Western hegemony in global research outputs (Salami, 2024). To counter this, this presentation advocates for the Africanisation of educational technology, ensuring that digital evolution in the lecture hall and laboratory is dictated by African culture rather than replacing it. Drawing on Argyris and Schön’s (1974) Theory of Action, this presentation calls for African scholars and HEIs to move from espoused theories to theories-in-use that prioritise cultural pride and self-trust. By leveraging both tacit and implicit knowledge – deeply rooted in pre-colonial ways of being and governance structures – HEIs can design curricula that align authentically with societal needs (Govender & Naidoo, 2023). Ultimately, decolonising the African university involves enriching the student experience through inclusivity and diluting extreme, polarising opinions that breed campus tension. This presentation proposes a movement toward humanising the ivory tower – transforming it into a space governed by care and belonging. The presentation serves as a call to dismantle the colonial shadow over higher education and to build a future in which African universities reflect African souls, fostering a generation of graduates who are both technologically advanced and culturally grounded.

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In recent decades, neoliberal reforms—embodied in ranking systems, quality assurance, audits, league tables, and performance metrics—have increasingly permeated global higher education (HE) systems. Critical scholarship, especially from Foucauldian and de-colonial perspectives, exposes how neoliberal policy discourse constructs academic subjectivities, constrains imaginaries of HE, and shapes academic conduct toward hyper-competitiveness and outcome-oriented productivity (Clarke & Knights, 2015; Morrissey, 2013; Shahjahan, 2014). Nonetheless, neoliberalism’s influence is neither totalizing nor uncontested. Resistance emerges as academics refuse imposed subjectivities and imagine alternative ways of being and doing within HE (Bristow et al., 2017; Rintamäki and Alvesson, 2023; Siltaloppi et al., 2022). While much critical literature focuses on Western contexts, there is a notable gap regarding non-Western, Global South HE settings (Burford & Wijaya Mulya, 2018). This study addresses that gap by ethnographically examining neoliberal policy discourse in Egyptian HE through a case study of a public institution. Guided by Foucauldian and de-colonial analytical frameworks, I explore how faculty members resist the imposed neoliberal individuality (Foucault, 1982) and question what it means to be a good academic. They problematize neoliberal policies and subjectivities, experimenting with alternative practices, counter-conducts, and different policy imaginaries. Drawing on de-coloniality as a process to ‘delink’ from dominant knowledge structures and engage in epistemic reconstitution (Mignolo, 2017), the study highlights faculty efforts to create different ontologies of being and doing, propose alternative epistemologies and situated knowledges, and envision diverging policy futures. By considering educational perspectives on organising and organisational learning (Göhlich et al., 2018), this study seeks to contribute to policy and organisational (un)learning, transformation, and the emergence of alternative possibilities and imaginaries. By problematising constraining normalities and discourses, it emphasises re-imagining and re-inventing HE organisations (Weber, 2022).

Göhlich, M., Novotný, P., Revsbæk, L., Schröer, A., Weber, S. M., & Yi, B. J. (2018). Research Memorandum Organizational Education. Studia Paedagogica, 23(2), 205-215. http://www.phil.muni.cz/journals/index.php/studia-paedagogica/article/view/1802/1968 Mignolo, W. (2017). Interview-Walter D Mignolo/Part 2 Key Concepts, E-International Relations, 21 January 2017. Available online at: https://www.e-ir.info/2017/01/21/interview-walter-mignolopart-2-key-concepts/ (accessed August 26, 2025). Morrissey, J. (2013). Governing the academic subject: Foucault, governmentality and the performing university. Oxford Review of Education, 39 (6), 797–810. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2013.860891 Rintamäki, J., & Alvesson, M. (2023). Resisting Whilst Complying? : A Case Study of a Power Struggle in a Business School. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 22(2), 257–273. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2020.0070 Shahjahan, R.A. (2014). From ‘no’ to ‘yes’: Postcolonial perspectives on resistance to neoliberal higher education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 35 (2), 219–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2012.745732 Siltaloppi, J., Laurila, J., & Artto, K. (2022). In the service of a higher good: Resilience of academics under managerial control. Organization, 29(4), 714– 735. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508419890084 Weber, S. M. (2022). A new audacity of imagination: Envisioning sustainable inclusion - transforming toward new patterns - practicing heterotopic organizing. In O. Koenig (Ed.), Inklusion und Transformation in Organisationen (pp. 199–217). Verlag Julius Klinkhardt. https://doi.org/10.25656/01:26064 (only some references are listed)

The Digital Panopticon: A Critical Analysis of Knowing and Acting in the Data-Driven University. Within higher education organisations, learning analytics (LA) serves as a bridge between institutional knowing and strategic acting. While often framed as an assessment support tool, a critical analysis reveals a tension between formative advancement and administrative surveillance. This presentation explores how the datafication of the student experience risks transforming higher education into a digital panopticon (Foucault, 1975), where the act of knowing is weaponised against the very students it claims to serve. This presentation first addresses the shift in assessment support, noting how the rationalisation of LA can reflect specific regional and institutional biases (Singh, 2023). Drawing on Bourdieu's reproduction theory, it argues that LA often prioritises normative selection over formative nurture. By reducing students' potential to ‘at-risk’ flags, institutions engage in a form of predatory inclusion, where success is pathologised through algorithmic deficit modelling. Furthermore, the study interrogates the temporal power of historical data. Drawing on Safiya Noble’s (2018) Algorithms of Oppression, the presentation demonstrates how historical bias in datasets automates systemic prejudices. To dismantle this panoptic gaze, the paper proposes a move toward 'organisational unlearning' (Tsang & Zahra, 2008)—a process where the institution deliberately discards the 'digital solidifications' of the past to prevent historical inequities from dictating future opportunities (Zembylas, 2024). The presentation concludes by advocating a Social Justice-Oriented Analytics Model. This framework moves from surveillance to solidarity, framing student 'data amnesty' as a radical act of institutional unlearning. By recentring student agency and a 'decoloniality of connectedness' (Jackson-Cole et al, 2025), universities can ensure that the transition from knowing to acting serves the goal of equity, dismantling the digital structures that perpetuate institutional control.

Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1975) . Jackson-Cole, D., Lechêne, J., & Kula, S. L. (2025). Toward decoloniality of connectedness in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 1–14 . https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2025.2588281 Mignolo, W. (2017, January 21). Interview – Walter D. Mignolo/Part 2: Key concepts. E-International Relations. https://www.e-ir.info/2017/01/21/interview-walter-mignolopart-2-key-concepts/ Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. New York University Press. Singh, M. (2023). Rationalising learning analytics in higher education: Insights from the South African academy. Southern African Review of Education, 28(1) . Zembylas, M. (2024). Decolonising data in higher education: Critical issues and future directions. Learning, Media and Technology, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2024.2386334

In our presentation, we extend a decolonial approach through a post-migrant perspective, situating our study in Germany as a migrant society. While postcolonial theory deconstructs power and domination in interdependent contexts (Bulgrin et al., 2025), a post-migrant perspective understands migration not as an exception but as a structural principle of modern societies (Foroutan, 2018). The study is part of a BMFTR-funded project examining how higher education institutions (HEIs) can attract and retain non-traditional students (NTS) by integrating sustainability and gender equality into technical study programmes. Based on website and interview analyses, we explore organisational and subject cultures within GreenTec programmes. Building on this foundational research, we co-created and analysed future and innovation labs—participatory, user-centred formats for organisational development (Adler & Weber, 2019). From a post-migrant perspective, universities are ambivalent spaces of both exclusion and critique. Participatory design can support social justice in these contexts (Völker, 2021). We therefore explore in our presentation which forms of power/knowledge (Foucault, 1969/2022) and subject positions are legitimised in technical study programmes. Our findings indicate that despite claims of inclusion, discursive representations of students continue to centre white, male subject positions while marginalising others (Bulgrin et al., 2026; Spivak, 1988). Although inclusion was a shared goal, organisational learning remained limited, revealing a gap between knowledge and action and raising questions about the legitimacy of critical knowledge in decision-making processes.

Adler, A., & Weber, S. M. (2019). Future and Innovation Labs as heterotopic Spaces. In S. M. Weber, I. Truschkat, C. Schröder, L. Peters, & A. Herz (Eds.), Organisation und Pädagogik. Organisation und Netzwerke (Vol. 26, pp. 375–383). Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20372-6_34 Bulgrin, E., Kruschick, F., & Ress, S. (2025). Editorial: Zur Notwendigkeit einer dekolonisierenden und demokratisierenden Forschungspraxis. Tertium Comparationis, 31(1), 1–13. https://www.waxmann.com/ausgabeAUG100555 Bulgrin, E., Mahkonen, H., & Weber, S. M. (2026). 'Authentic Othering': Strategy and Tactics of 'Viscurseive Priviliging' in Substainable Higer Edudaction Institutions. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal. Foroutan, N. (2018). Die postmigrantische Perspektive: Aushandlungsprozesse in pluralen Gesellschaften. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. https://doi.org/10.18452/21909 Foucault, M. (2022). Archäologie des Wissens (U. Köppen, Trans.) [L' archéologie du savoir] (20th ed.). Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft: Vol. 356. Suhrkamp. (Original work published 1969) Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Cover of Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvxw3q7f Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (pp. 271–313). University of Illinois. Völker, S. (2021). Verhandlungen von sozialer Mobilität und Biografie in postmigrantischen Gesellschaften. GENDER – Zeitschrift Für Geschlecht, Kultur Und Gesellschaft, 13(3), 59–73. https://doi.org/10.3224/gender.v13i3.05