A Danish case study of a sociomaterial construction of a new nomos and purpose of higher education

Abstract

AbstractThis article combines Bourdieusian practice with narrative sociomaterial theory to investigate what story of higher education and its purpose is being conveyed to students. Our case study revolves around a Danish university. We conduct a sociomaterial analysis of three university sites: an information day for prospective students, a video of a campus tour, and on-campus signage. We subject photographs of these data and the transcribed video to a sociomaterial analysis of how material objects and human subjects are socially positioned. We find that sociomateriality constructs two conflicting narratives about the purpose of higher education. High school graduates are courted with a narrative of an educational, person-centric, and knowledge-centric journey that will safely lead to favorable professional positions. Upon enrollment a changed, market-centered narrative envisions students as soon-to-be business assets who must self-optimize to forge a career. Both narratives remain at the stage of ante-narrative as they do not provide an ending: while the person-centric narrative is replaced upon enrollment, the business-centric narrative reduces university experiences to the “start” of the students’ career. On a sociopolitical level, our case is indicative of the trend of higher education adjusting its symbolic rules to business parameters and thus handing over relative autonomy to the economic field. Moreover, our study entails implications for theory in that it brings together Bourdieusian and Bojean (ante)narrative theory and conceptualizes dominant narratives as nomos. The paper further offers ideas on how to document and analyze data for researchers taking a sociomaterial approach.