Bringing the ‘nation-state’ into being: affect, methodological nationalism and globalisation of higher education

ABSTRACT

Methodological nationalism (MN) pervades higher education scholarship and practice, particularly in the arena of globalisation of higher education (HE) (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013). MN refers to the assumption that national boundaries define the natural category or unit of analysis for society. Drawing on affect theories, this conceptual article aims to problematise how the ‘nation state’ as a natural category (or container) pervades global HE practices and policies. Affect refers to emotions, responses, reactions and feelings that are relational and transpersonal, and an object’s (e.g., nation-state) continuous emergence and unfolding in a world driven by intensities and feelings. Based on three real-life examples in/about South Asian HE, we demonstrate how the ‘nation-state’ category comes into being (and becomes ‘sticky’) through the experienced and imagined encounters among: (a) individuals, (b) national policy and (c) transnational actors. We show how, through imaginaries and practices, the ‘global’ manifested through using the ‘nation-state’, indicating a strong and evolving relationship between the two categories, informed by emotional and imaginative futures. We argue that an affect lens illuminates how MN is perpetuated as the nation-state becomes a naturalised container for (potential) encounters in the enactments of HE globalisation and moving beyond MN requires an ontological shift.

KEYWORDS:

• Affect theory
• globalisation
• nation-state
• methodological nationalism
• higher education
• mobility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We know that naming these spaces using national container signifiers renders us complicit in our own critique of MN. This highlights the challenge of moving beyond MN in scholarship, as we grapple with descriptions of ‘geopolitical space’ in ways that are legible and accessible for audiences.

2 Borhan’s narrative came from a larger study examining the role of temporality in academic life in Bangladesh among 22 academics (see Shahjahan, Niloy, and Ema 2021b). We focus on Borhan’s narrative here, specifically given his extensive experiences as a senior professor in a public university who engaged in academic mobility personally and mentored others to go abroad. In our interview with Borhan, he spent considerable time sharing the role of studying abroad in his career trajectory. His rich narratives inspired us to engage and gave us the language to critically reframe the globalisation of HE from MN and affect lens standpoints.