Higher Education, Inequalities, and a Tetralemma: Reflections on Depictions of Neonationalism and the Knowledge Society

In this article, we reflect on debates about the position of the university in contexts of widening intersectional inequalities, neonationalism, and questions regarding the capacity of the knowledge society to adequately address the range of vulnerabilities associated with the Anthropocene. We review a role we proposed for universities after the 2008 financial crisis, considering that, as particularly located institutions with links across a range of systems, they could help resolve a tetralemma, which pulled in four different directions needing to reconcile aspirations for economic growth, equity, democracy, and sustainability. Drawing on research conducted in the subsequent decades, we show that higher education systems and universities have not adequately taken the challenge of providing a space to address the different demands associated with the tetralemma. We consider some of the systemic and institutional changes needed for this to happen and propose three conditions of possibility for continuing the transnational and open idea of a university in hard times.