Knowledge production in higher education: Between Europe and the Middle East

ABSTRACT

With a selected focus on Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Knowledge production in higher education presents a reflexive understanding of how Europe is taught and studied at MENA universities and how knowledge about the MENA is produced in Europe. This focus is based on the observation that higher education is rarely an apolitical space and an acknowledgement of how ‘every view is a view from somewhere'. It therefore explores the politics of institutes of higher education in view of often competing scholarly practices. Furthermore, it examines the historical evolution of French, German and Italian scholarship on the MENA;analyses the cases of Malta, Palestine and Turkey with their respective liminal characteristics in between the MENA and Europe, and how these impact on higher educational approaches to the study of the Other;considers critique as the driving force not only of the higher educational establishment but of liberal and illiberal contexts, with a specific focus on Denmark, the Netherlands and Egypt;and examines influences upon knowledge production including gender, the COVID-19 pandemic (with a focus on the UK and Syria) and think tanks. © Manchester University Press 2023.