Transnational education zones: Towards an urban political economy of ‘education cities’

• Published in: Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) Vol. 58; no. 14; pp. 2845 - 2862
• Main Authors: Kleibert, Jana M, Bobée, Alice, Rottleb, Tim, Schulze, Marc
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks Sage Publications 01.11.2021; Sage Publications, Inc; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: agglomeration; Cities; Colleges & universities; economic processes; Economics; Education; education cities; Embeddedness; globalisation; Globalization; Higher education; international branch campus; Knowledge economy; place branding; Political economy; Politics; Transnationalism; Urban areas; Urban schools; urbanisation; place branding; education; 全球化; 集聚; economic processes; agglomeration; 国际分校; 教育城市; 经济过程; 场所品牌; urbanisation; 教育; 城市化; education cities; globalisation; international branch campus
• ISSN: 0042-0980; 1360-063X; 1360-063X
• DOI: 10.1177/0042098020962418

Prevalent notions of 'education cities' and 'education hubs' are vaguely defined, operate at blurry scales and tend to reproduce promotional language. The article contributes to theorising the geographies and spaces of globalising higher education by developing the concept of transnational education zones. Through an urban political economy lens, we review the relations between universities and cities, consider universities' role in the political economy and understand universities as transnational urban actors. We exhaustively map the phenomenon of transnational education zones and empirically analyse cases from four cities (Doha, Dubai, Iskandar and Flic en Flac) with respect to their embeddedness in state-led projects for the 'knowledge economy', their vision for transnational subject formation and their character as urban zones of exception. The conclusion develops a research agenda for further critical geographic inquiries into the (re)making of cities through the development of transnational spaces of higher education that explores the relations between globalising higher education and material and discursive transformations at the urban scale.