Austerity-privacy & fossil fuel divestment activism at Canadian universities (AUR 59 02)

Austerity has signalled several political and cultural changes in the past ten years. One frequent and highly criticised change has been the increasing privatisation that has occurred as part of the agenda. This has occurred in most levels of formal education. One related, but under-investigated, aspect of austerity has been the feature of privacy that has worked to enable the increasing privatisation. In this essay, we attempt to unpack how what we refer to as austerity-privacy has enabled formal education – specifically Canadian universities – to withdraw from critical public discourses. More...