Engaging neoliberal community engagement: Research and organizing with immigrant workers

Author(s):

Philion, S.

Format:

Book section

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Language:

English

Abstract:

The experience of forming a successful Faculty Research Group on Immigrant Workers in Minnesota (RG) should be an optimistic story promoting the opportunities and virtues of campus-based community engagement. Despite this achievement, I have become even more critical of community engagement's limitations both on and off campus. In particular, the impact that neoliberalism has on higher education seriously challenges and undercuts democratic collaborations for radical education and social change. This chapter, while noting certain successful efforts, focuses on how neoliberal conditions limit efforts to promote more political and progressive engagement activities for students, faculty, and community partners. In fact, my experience demonstrates that neoliberalism and its attendant values undermine the very public and engaged missions of higher education by ultimately rewarding and promoting a rigged meritocracy and corporate hegemony. The Formation of a Research Group on Immigrant Workers in Minnesota The RG began as an idea in the spring of 2008, when St. Cloud State University (SCSU) president Earl Potter III asked departments to propose new initiatives linking campus research and local community issues. Potter arrived at SCSU in the fall of 2007 and immediately proclaimed that both local and global community engagement would be vital components of the school's mission. Moreover, his administration emphasized the need for greater interdisciplinary collaboration combined with increased “efficiencies” as crucial elements of university restructuring. Several colleagues and I believed that a cross-college research group and possible center on immigrant workers in Minnesota would meet most of these despite our apprehensions about the term “efficiencies,” which in the language of corporatization often means budget cuts and work speed-ups. We did see opportunities for successful and creative, democratic engagement, though. St. Cloud is home to between 6000 and 8000 Somali refugees and a growing population of South Sudanese, Vietnamese, and Hmong immigrants. The region also plays host to a large population of Chicano and Latino immigrants. For example, between 2000 and 2010, the Latino population in St. Cloud increased by over 100 percent, while in the nearby smaller city of Cold Spring (home to the Gold'n Plump poultry processing factory) Latinos have increased by 635 percent (CensusViewer, 2012). © Cambridge University Press 2017.

ISBN:

9781316650011 (ISBN); 9781107153783 (ISBN)

Identifier:

HmongStudies2565