Higher education knowledge production in postcolonial-neoliberal Asia

A considerable amount of contemporary discussion on higher education hinges around knowledge production, which is one of the three purported raison d'être of colleges and universities. This presentation takes a closer look at Asian knowledge production in transition from her colonial past and inextricably neoliberal present. From the Far East to the Central Asia steppes through Southeast Sea, most of Asian nation-states were colonial territories. While a lot has been said about neoliberal impact on Asian higher education such as ‘brain gain/drain’, marketization and globalization, in a century that is called after her, Asia is yet to come to terms with her past under imperialism cum Cold-War ‘peripheriality’ imposed by the West amidst fresh nationalistic struggles and territorial disputes from within. Thus, instead of celebrative descriptions or eulogies, this chapter takes a rather critical position regarding the ongoing neo-liberalization of knowledge production in Asia. To do this, it examines the discourse of Confucian heritage culture and its influence on knowledge production followed by some recent counter-arguments against universalism of research methodology, namely, Asia as a higher education research methodology.