| The last three decades have seen significant changes for higher education institutions throughout the world. The era of globalization has left little untouched and both our society and colleges and universities look, think, and operate differently as a result. Notwithstanding the movement toward global interdependence and intercultural rhetoric in mission statements, there is little in the academic literature on the topic of higher education engagement with displaced academics. This research draws on interviews with a variety of multidisciplinary scholars from around the world who have had to flee their home countries due to the political and/or ideological nature of their intellectual work, and who now hold appointments at U.S. higher education institutions through the Scholars at Risk network. This research, in turn, is framed by the following questions: How do displaced academics view academic freedom in their home countries and in the United States? What factors safeguard and/or threaten the tenets of academic freedom? What observations have displaced academics drawn from their experiences in U.S. colleges and universities? How have displaced academics interacted with their academic communities through their teaching and research? Thematic analysis is informed by tenets of critical geography that aim to better understand the changing dynamics of a globalization era across space, place, and time, as well as a juxtaposing view of the movement of knowledge on one hand and people on the other (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017; Massey, 2005). Findings reveal that restrictions to academic freedom range from explicit to implicit, and that implicit restrictions are a common feature of U.S. academic life. Further, to adequately understand the experiences of exile is to conceptualize a geography of mobility and immobility, where displaced academics must contend with being removed but still connected. Knowledge production and exchange also is susceptible to mobility and immobility, and the experiences of displaced academics reveal the ways in which these barriers can be circumnavigated. Finally, displaced academics in U.S. institutions offer extraordinarily relevant perspectives on the state of U.S. higher education, and are far more valuable to their hosting communities than their academic output alone. |
