The knowledge economy and innovation: certain uncertainty and the risk economy

The knowledge economy is a dominant force in today\u27s world, and innovation policy and national systems of innovation are central to it. In this article, we draw on different sociological and economic theories of risk to engage critically with innovation policy and national systems of innovation. Beck\u27s understanding of a risk society, Schumpeter\u27s innovation thesis, and Perez\u27s techno-economic paradigm are used to consider the risk economy, and the broader risk implications of knowledge economy policies and their associated innovation systems. Derrida\u27s theory of haunting provides the methodological framework for our discussion. We use his notion of &ldquo;hauntology&rdquo; to conceptualize the risk economy as a ghost that haunts knowledge economy policies and systems. The spectral risk economy draws attention to the inherent instability of the knowledge economy, and challenges the certainty of its economic dogma by offering an alternative perspective. The risk economy problematizes knowledge economy policies and systems by revealing the uncertain and &ldquo;undecidable&rdquo; future of social, political and cultural hazards ignored in the interest of commercial gain.<br /

Multi-sited global ethnography and travel: gendered journeys in three registers

This paper joins a barely begun conversation about multi-sited and global ethnography in educational research; a conversation that is likely to intensify along with growing interest in the links between education, globalisation, internationalisation and transnationalism. Drawing on an ongoing multi-sited global ethnography of elite schools and globalisation, this paper explores the role of travel in multi-sited global ethnography and offers a feminist engagement with it. It considers the idea of fieldwork as a travel practice through three different travel registers; the traveller’s tale, critical travel studies and travel as exile. In so doing, it illustrates the reflexive affordances each register offers with regard to the directions of our feminist inquiries into elite schools and our feminist ethnographic practices

Haunting the knowledge economy

This highly original book provides an engaging and critical introduction to the knowledge economy. The knowledge economy is a potent force pervading global and national policy circles. Yet few people outside the field of economics understand its central ideas and practices. This book makes these accessible. But it does much more. It provokes \u27conversations\u27 between the knowledge economy and those marginalized economies that haunt it: the risk, gift, libidinal and survival economies. These illuminate the knowledge economy\u27s shortcomings and point to alternative possible systems of exchange and sets of values. This multi-disciplinary study takes the knowledge economy out of the hands of the economists and brings it into creative tension with the ideas of key thinkers from sociology, anthropology, philosophy and ecology. Illustrating the benefits of conversing with the ghosts of alternative economies, this provocative book will unsettle the way in which the knowledge economy is understood. Groundbreaking and globally applicable, it has been authored by internationally respected authors and its conceptual breadth pertains to a range of disciplines and gives it its wide appeal.<br /