'Smart' colonialism: a case study of international students' (from non-native English-speaking countries) perspective and experience of navigating 'smart campus' features at Oxford University

Thesis

This thesis is a study of power. More specifically, it investigates the forms and operations of power that can be observed in ‘smart campus’ projects in UK higher education, which promises to improve the student experience with more inclusive and innovative digital infrastructure systems.

A case study of Oxford University is taken to explore its Digital Transformation Programme (DTP), supported by the Digital Education Strategy 2023-2027, which provides a strategic policy to advance learning and research, and the digital technologies that enable access and participation. The purpose of this research is twofold: to examine the extent to which Oxford University is mobilising ‘smart campus’ imaginaries to create data-driven, coded spaces that have the effect of sculpting particular kinds of educational values and practices; and how these features are experienced by international students—an important yet often overlooked group who rely on ‘smart’ applications to overcome social and cultural barriers, and at the same time, find themselves increasingly subject to technology’s racial and imperialist power relations. For such a group, questions of the future of education—and of social justice and equality more generally—are of vital importance to be addressed.

Through the collection of institutional documents and statistics, relational maps, and semistructured interviews with international students, faculty members, and DTP consultants, a core finding of the research suggests that when it comes to the use and development of ‘smart campus’ features for international students, there are considerable ambiguity, contradiction, and unease among participants as to what this looks like, and the principles and practices that undergird these systems. Drawing on Foucault’s critical concept of the dispositif and decolonial theories, the thesis argues that a colonial gaze guides initiatives to create ‘smarter’ universities in ways that, despite its modernist rhetoric of transformation, continue an oppressive history of counting, categorising, and governing Others.

This research attempts to make sense of the long-term consequences of ‘smart campus’ projects in both masking and deepening social inequalities; and thus, engages with alternative ways of imagining the future of education that represents, liberates, and places social justice within a wider and historical field of power relations.

Authors: Zhang, SYL

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-vedxvoqey
• Type of award: MSc
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: smart campus; digital transformation; power; Oxford; digital education; international students
• Subjects: Education