Paper short abstract:

This paper explores ownership in the context of New Zealand neo-liberal university reforms. We ask: How are these reforms affecting academic culture and practice? Who owns the university? What can a policy perspective reveal about regimes of governance?

Paper long abstract:

Over the past two decades universities in New Zealand have been subject to an almost continuous process of transformation and 'neo-liberalization' as government has sought to harness academic research and teaching to meet its own strategic priorities and commercial goals. Despite claims that universities should be 'learning communities' and not 'businesses', government increasingly demands that universities lead its 'economic transformation agenda' through the commercialization of research, and the marketing of its teaching and intellectual property. Policies introduced since the 1980s have been accompanied by measures commonly associated with New Public Management. These have dramatically changed the structure of university governance as well as the character of the university as a public institution.

This paper uses ideas of ownership and appropriation to examine how these reforms affect universities. Drawing on recent fieldwork in one of New Zealand's leading universities and using an ethnographic analysis of conflicts over the direction of university reform, we ask: who 'owns' or the university ? Who speaks for it? What does 'ownership' mean in a university context? Have these reforms protected institutional autonomy and academic freedom or have they led to greater centralization and control - and the 'governmentalization' of university practice?