'White pages' in the academy: Plagiarism, consumption and racist rationalities

Abstract

This paper is situated against the backdrop of the global market in tertiary education, and recent moral panics in the Australian press concerning the implications of international education for what is perceived by many as a decline in academic standards and a potential devaluing of Australian tertiary qualifications in the global marketplace. This paper poses a challenge to these notions, and draws on poststructuralist theories of consumption, production and power, to consider how discourses of educational consumption are mapped onto the racialised commodification of tertiary education. The paper argues that racism—under the rhetorical guise of neoliberal ideals such as maintaining academic standards, ensuring institutional accountability and protecting market share in the interest of the national economy— shapes the discursive terrain of international education in the tertiary sector.