Colonialism and Globalization
The English language was a tool of colonization. In The Empire Writes Back, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin present a revolutionary insight: "The key feature of colonial oppression [is] the control over the means of communication rather than the control over life and property or even language itself" (78). Imperialist countries would take over other nations, usually for resources and the exploitation of labor, and force the indigenous people to conform to the mother country's dominant language, which in most cases was English. The colonialist ideology, "often referred to as colonialist discourse to mark its relationship to the language in which colonialist thinking was expressed," was based on the assumption that the colonizer's way of life was superior (Tyson 366). In order for the natives to be recognized as intelligent individuals, they would have to conform to the standard rules of English, rules that they would never truly master as secondary learners.
The superiority held by English language colonizers has never left the rhetoric nor the structure of modern day English and composition departments. Instead, the language has changed in accordance with the times. According to David B. Downing, Claude Mark Hurlbert, and Paula Mathieu in Beyond English Inc., the term globalization first "came to prominence in the 1970s as American Express began proclaiming the reach of its credit card" (3). The term is most commonly used to justify deregulating financial markets, which led to the "disempowerment of national and local working-class movements and trade union power" (3). Society's prevalent emphasis on entrepreneurial rhetoric and globalization has affected universities in very negative ways.
Now that spending has been "redirected or cut from state and land-grant university budgets, academics compete more vehemently for scarce resources, research grants, and government support, even as they claim intellectual autonomy" (3). Cost reductions have had harmful and negative effects that lead to the freezing of positions, programs, and sometimes even departments. With regards to English departments, the impending cutbacks have been especially detrimental. Writing programs and writing services have been cut. The comradery between composition professors wane as competitiveness for jobs, tenure-positions, and sabbaticals are emphasized. Even students suffer because professors are either under too much pressure to publish papers or too overworked to have time for students outside the classroom.
Although globalization in relation to economic and technological transformations make effective change seem impossible, understanding the processes involved with these constraining conditions will help professors create a space of agency in which to work from. However, it is important to note that curricular innovations must be created in regards to specific institutions against the specific constraints prevalent for that particular educational system.
Within a larger context of study, I would focus on the rise of scientific management, the condition of postmodernity, flexible labor and the great contraction, and global technology. Additional scholars I would research include Frederick Taylor, Clyde Barrow, David Harvey, and Bill Readings.