Antonio Augusto Rossotto Ioris

Antonio Augusto Rossotto Ioris
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Cardiff University | CU · School of Geography and Planning

Doctor of Philosophy
Social theory; Agribusiness and agricultural frontiers; Environment and development; Genocide, commons and capital ruins

About

375
Publications
114,850
Reads
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3,082
Citations
Introduction
Ioris is a humanist scholar with a particular interest in the political (class-based and ethnicity-related) interconnections between nature, society and development. Main areas of research are related to the search for environmental justice and overcoming the multiple obstacles faced by those impacted by the Stalinism of agribusiness and mainstream development.
Additional affiliations
September 2019 - July 2024
Cardiff University
Position
  • Reader
Description
  • Interested in the land struggle of peasants and indigenous peoples (the Guarani-Kaiowa in particular) against the hegemony and the crimes of agribusiness.
September 1988 - May 1992
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
Position
  • Research Assistant
November 2016 - September 2019
Cardiff University
Position
  • Senior Lecturer
Description
  • work on political geography; environment and development; political ecology and environmental governance; agribusiness frontiers
Education
September 2018 - March 2023
Cardiff University
Field of study
  • French
October 2000 - May 2005
University of Aberdeen
Field of study
  • Geography
September 1998 - October 1999
University of Oxford
Field of study
  • Environmental Change and Management

Publications

Publications (375)
Book
Full-text available
The Political Ecology of the State is the first book to critically assess the philosophical basis of environmental statehood and regulation, addressing the emergence and evolution of environmental regulation from the early 20th Century to the more recent phase of ecological modernisation and the neoliberalisation of nature. The state is understood...
Article
Full-text available
The article can be download from: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1XAhu3Qu6uJuBT The spatiality of frontier-making goes beyond the more immediate relocation from ‘core’ to ‘periphery’, entailing a deep relational interaction between old and new areas. The article discusses the interdependence between centre and frontier and suggests that this happe...
Book
Full-text available
This book discusses the outcomes of more than ten years of research in the southern tracts of the Amazon region, and addresses the expansion of the agricultural frontier, consolidation of the agribusiness-based economy, and expansion of regional infrastructure (roads, dams, urban centres, etc). It combines extensive empirical evidence with the int...
Book
Full-text available
This book will provide a comprehensive overview of emerging challenges facing different social groups, policy-makers and the international community related to economic growth, social development and environmental change, social inclusion and regional development. The book will undertake a critical assessment of the tensions associated with the fai...
Book
Full-text available
The book is an analysis of the genocidal violence perpetrated against indigenous peoples in Brazil and, specifically, towards the Guarani-Kaiowa (the indigenous groups most severely affected by land grabbing, homicides and suicides in the country). The ongoing indigenous genocide is defined as ‘Kaiowcide’, in place since the 1970s, when the Guarani...
Article
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations (UN) have become a global mission and task. However, with the SDG process now halfway through, the evaluation of SDG 14 has yet to be initiated. The study presents an evaluation system based on Pressure-State-Response and SDG 14, which evaluated the trend and spatial charact...
Article
Full-text available
Water management is a main public policy issue and an important matter inside of the political context of any nation. The comprehension of water policies is directly related to national development strategies. This paper examines the water policies aspects of two different but emblematic national experiences (in Brazil and Scotland) and address mul...
Article
Full-text available
The socio-spatiality of capitalist modernity is the embodiment of pressures to eliminate common, spatially adapted institutions in the name of an allegedly more rational world demarcated by the prospect of having everything private and predisposed to be exploited. The vital element of these pressures to legitimise economic inequalities to extract m...
Article
Full-text available
The implementation of large-scale water infrastructure projects, such as the São Francisco River Integration Project with the Northeastern Hydrographic Basins (PISF), causes territorial transformations of great proportions, constituting a new hydrosocial cycle, resulting in hydrosocial territories in which not only water but also power relations an...
Book
Full-text available
World-renowned scholar of human geography, development, and environmental change Antonio Ioris presents an original reconceptualisation of the notions of difference and indifference and their impacts on social structures. Drawing on a wide range of philosophical debates, and offering groundbreaking new insights into geographically specific trends t...
Article
Full-text available
AThe article discusses the political-economy of agribusiness, making use of the category of rent that is considered as a proportion of exchange value diverted from production for the payment to the landowners and, crucially, its class-based allies. Rent is therefore more than just the extraction of value from the use of land, but there is a wider,...
Article
Full-text available
Although genocide is an expression commonly used today in relation to the dramatic challenges faces by indigenous peoples around the world, the significance of the Guarani–Kaiowa genocidal experience is not casual and cannot be merely sloganised. The indigenous genocide unfolding in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul – Kaiowcide – is not jus...
Article
Full-text available
It is still largely ignored that Hegelian dialect is of great assistance to comprehend the production and contestation of space. Hegelian philosophy can help to enrich geographical scholarship, although Hegel-the-geographer is yet to be discovered and properly recognised. Considering the metabolism of reason, the articulation between the particular...
Chapter
Full-text available
The chapter brings a critical perspective to water governance and environmental justice in the Brazilian section of the Amazon river basin, focusing on the expansion of hydroelectric dams, often associated with investments in fluvial navigation infrastructure, as emblematic of the many controversies around the allocation and use of water in the reg...
Article
Full-text available
It is still largely ignored that Hegelian dialect can be of great assistance to comprehend the intricacies of the production, experience, and contestation of space. Hegelian philosophy can significantly help to enrich geographical scholarship, although Hegel‐the‐geographer is yet to be discovered and properly recognised. Considering the metabolism...
Book
Full-text available
O Volume 5 da série abrange algumas das mais relevantes e atuais reflexões sobre a trajetória dos Guarani e Kaiowá em Mato Grosso do Sul. Apontando novas demandas teóricas e analíticas necessárias para dar conta de uma realidade socioespacial profundamente injusta e instável, traz a contribuição de autoras/es indígenas e não indígenas com formação...
Article
Full-text available
This article deals with the very emblematic, but largely understudied, trajectory of national and local development in Paraguay, which is an example of a subtractive geography that produces spaces that are, in aggregate, less than before. Subtraction is an old driving-force of nation-building as it connects the subtractive colonial past with the cu...
Article
Full-text available
The article investigates the long-term tendencies of Paraguayan political-economy, in particular the mounting impacts of export-oriented agribusiness on its indigenous peoples. The analysis is based on the theorisation of the geographical force of subtraction, that is, the evanescent properties of capitalist development, in which economic growth ta...
Article
Full-text available
Water and sanitation remains a very challenging and contested socio-ecological terrain. Around the world, the record of success is uneven, while new problems continue to emerge associated, for instance, with chaotic urbanization, lack of public investment and climate change. The pattern of responses is complex, ranging from local initiatives and na...
Chapter
Full-text available
Não se pode ignorar que os últimos anos da política e economia no Brasil foram um período de grandes desafios e muitos sobressaltos. Ainda estamos tentando compreender o que realmente se passou e o legado dessa fase de tanto obscurantismo e patrocínio da estupidez. A já difícil situação dos povos indígenas, particularmente em Mato Grosso do Sul, so...
Chapter
Full-text available
The case study discusses important ethical, methodologic, and interpretative questions that should be considered when doing participatory research involving marginalized social groups and, in particular, Indigenous peoples. The condition and the experience of Indigenous peoples—such as the Guarani-Kaiowa in Brazil, who have suffered the terrible co...
Chapter
Full-text available
Inequalities suffered by indigenous peoples around the world constitute one of the most dramatic examples of socio-spatial violence and ethnic-related marginalisation, as a localised expression of global social problems. The range of injustices experience by the Guarani-Kaiowa indigenous people in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul is not ju...
Article
Full-text available
This article is focused on the politics of indigeneity, which is an increasingly important concept and a central area of dispute in a globalised world. Indigeneity encapsulates the friction between ethnicity and class identities, which cannot be understood without a full consideration of differences and relationships between landowners, other econo...
Presentation
Full-text available
The land-related violence suffered by indigenous peoples around the world constitutes one of the most dramatic examples of socio-spatial discrimination and ethnic-related marginalisation, as a localised expression of the maelstrom of global contemporary society. The range of injustices experienced by the Guarani-Kaiowa indigenous people in the Braz...
Article
Full-text available
We want to start this commentary with a praise for our outgoing Editor-in-chief Dr Catherine Locke. Catherine stepped in and took on stewardship of Progress in Development Studies (PIDS) at a time of great uncertainty for the journal. She devoted time and energy far beyond the call of duty to secure its survival and redefine its strategic direction...
Article
Full-text available
This article discusses some of the long-term tendencies of the Paraguayan political economy, focusing, in particular, on impacts on indigenous peoples and, because of the ongoing agribusiness expansion in the northeast of the country, on the Paĩ Tavyterã nation. This analysis is warranted because of the growing recognition of the importance of land...
Book
Full-text available
O livro abrange algumas das mais relevantes e recentes reflexões acadêmicas sobre o entrecruzamento entre gênero e etnia que afeta as Guarani e Kaiowá no sul do Mato Grosso do Sul. Além disso, aponta para as novas demandas teóricas e analíticas necessárias para dar conta de uma realidade socioespacial profundamente injusta, instável e desafiadora....
Chapter
Full-text available
O texto apresenta uma reflexão sobre como tendências racistas continuam a permear história e a geografia brasileira. Fica demonstrado que as relações do passado continuaram a impactar sistematicamente o presente em um processo sempre inacabado de construção da nação baseado em tratamentos espúrios de diferenças socioespaciais. A discussão lança mão...
Article
Full-text available
The Minnesota ag giant's move comes ahead of COP28 and after months of sustained criticism of its soy supply chain from environmental groups. https://www.startribune.com/cargill-new-goal-end-deforestation-land-conversion-brazil-rainforest-soybeans-south-america-amazon/600322674
Article
Full-text available
This paper presents an analysis of the politico-economic and ethnic-social basis of difference, paying special attention to the anti-difference violence suffered by indigenous peoples and the concrete experience of the Gurani-Kaiowa in Brazil. Ethnic-social differences and commonalities are here examined through a social sciences reinterpretation o...
Article
Full-text available
http://esmat.tjto.jus.br/publicacoes/index.php/revista_esmat/issue/view/25 Abstract: The indigenous genocide unfolding in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul – described here as Kaiowcide – is not just a case of hyperbolic violence, but it is something qualitatively different from other serious crimes committed against marginalised, subalter...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Indigenous politics is crucial for rethinking some of the most serious contemporary dilemmas, as in the case of pressing discussions of development, democracy and justice. Those debates are particularly poignant today given the mounting disruptive interventions committed in the name of economic growth and resource management. The presentation exami...
Chapter
Full-text available
Kuña Kuéra Reko é uma das expressões utilizadas em língua guarani pelas mulheres guarani e kaiowa em Mato Grosso para se referir aos modos específicos de ser mulher entre estes indígenas. Kuña Kuéra, Kuñague, Kuñaguera – todos se referem as mulheres no plural. A diversidade feminina também é produtora do ñandereko, o modo de ser guarani e kaiowa. D...
Article
Full-text available
Difference is not an epiphenomenon of socio-spatial relations, but a genuine worldmaking driving-force, provided that it is the handling of difference that paves the way to specific interactions that end up shaping society and, ultimately, space. There exists not merely ‘a world of difference’ but a world because, and out of, differences. This arti...
Article
Full-text available
Although genocide is commonly used today to describe the dramatic challenges indigenous peoples face worldwide, the significance of the Guarani-Kaiowa genocidal experience is not casual and cannot be merely sloganized. The indigenous genocide unfolding in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul –“Kaiowcide”– is not just a case of hyperbolic viole...
Research Proposal
Full-text available
Indigeneity, Land and Labour: Indigenous Responses to Local and Global Threats Submission deadline: 31 March 2024 This collection will combine analytical categories normally considered separately, that is, labour and land-based relations on the one hand, and the production and reinforcement of ethnic and spatial differences on the other. More spec...
Data
Resumen | El propósito de este artículo es relacionar la importante cuestión de la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas, en términos de tomar decisiones sobre su vida libremente, con la noción de indigeneidad, reconceptualizada como un recurso socialmente construido y profundamente cuestionado. Los recursos son más que simples activos estáticos o can...
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of this article is to relate the very important question of the autonomy of indigenous peoples to freely make decisions about their life with the notion of indigeneity, reconceptualised as a socially constructed and deeply contested resource. Resources are more than mere static assets or quantities of matter waiting to be measured, expl...
Presentation
Full-text available
The spatiality of border-making entails a relational interaction and joint processes of exploitation, realignment and reinforcement. There is in place a subtractive geography that is crucial for the split, subordination and containment of borderland areas by politico-economic centres. Following Alain Badiou (Théorie du Sujet), those processes of ch...
Chapter
Full-text available
En el capítulo 4, Maria Angélica Maciel Costa y Antônio Augusto Rossotto Ioris titularon su trabajo Hasta la última gota: complejidad hidrosocial y ecología política del agua en la Bajada Fluminense, Río de Janeiro, Brasil. Los autores utilizan el concepto de justicia ambiental, desde la perspectiva de la ecología política, para analizar los result...
Article
Full-text available
Frontier-making has always been fundamental for the circulation and accumulation of capital. The perennity of frontier-making is not only due to the demand for minerals, land or other resources, or because frontiers represent fresh market opportunities, but crucially because it operates as compensation for the saturation of the existing capitalist...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Paĩ Tavyterã leader Andrés Brítez in the community of Yvy Pyte in the Paraguayan department of Amambay (William Costa) ora Rosatti listens attentively to Lileia Almeida as she speaks inside the packed wood and straw oypysy (temple) in the reclaimed ancestral territory of Laranjeira Nhanderu in southern Brazil. The
Article
Full-text available
Brazil has been on the news recently; a lot, and often for the wrong reasons. The country, which has long been portrayed as a land of exuberant ecosystems and entrenched inequalities, is now undergoing a very delicate return to peaceful, democratic life, away from the crimes and violations we analysed during the international colloquium 'Rising Vio...
Research
Full-text available
Em 2021, a ministra dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil conversou com autores do livro 'Amazônia no século XXI: trajetórias, dilemas e perspectivas' sobre a realidade dos movimentos indígenas no país . O livro reúne diversos artigos de especialistas e entrevistas com ativistas e representantes de povos originários. Organizado por Antônio Rossotto Ioris e...
Article
Full-text available
The article investigates how racist trends have permeated Brazilian history and geography. It discusses the persistence of racism and indifference in the early post-independence and republic periods. Past relations continued to systematically impact the present in an always unfinished process of nation-building based on spurious treatments of socio...
Article
Full-text available
(published by Revista NERA) A produção agroalimentar e o desenvolvimento agrário constituem algumas das áreas mais desafiadoras da formulação de políticas públicas, conservação socioecológica e justiça socioambiental na atualidade (Ioris e Fernandes, 2022). Não foi por acaso que muitos autores têm associado a crise financeira de 2008 à crescente c...
Article
Full-text available
Indigenous schools are spaces for the convergence of different worldviews and to demonstrate how the creativity of each ethnic group challenges exogenous and established concepts and methodologies. The present article examines main trends and pending gaps related to indigenous education in Brazil between the years 2007 and 2019. Issues such as the...
Book
Full-text available
The Second Edition of this book is completely revised and updated throughout providing an overview of current challenges faced within the area of Agri-food in relation to policymaking, ecological conservation and socio-environmental justice. Including a range of new chapters, the book explores some of the conceptual and analytical gaps that are pre...
Chapter
Full-text available
The genocide of indigenous peoples is one of the most evident attributes of the ever-expanding agribusiness, as it releases land, labour and resources then used for the production of commodities and the circulation of capital. Contemporary genocides actualise and maintain processes characterised by intense violence, given that the underlying logic...
Chapter
Full-text available
Agri-food production and agrarian development constitute some of the most challenging areas of public policymaking, ecological conservation and socio-environmental justice nowadays. It is not by chance that George Monbiot affirmed, in a The Guardian article on 19 May 2022, that ‘the banks collapsed in 2008—and our food system is about to do the sam...
Article
Full-text available
Social scientists, both working in academia or in policymaking and activism, have offered some of the most interesting reflections on socio-ecological problems. Instead of the conventional description of environmental impacts and the formulation of merely mitigatory measures, critical researchers have emphasised the ontological interdependencies be...
Chapter
Full-text available
A partir de parceria com instituições de ensino e pesquisas do Brasil e a Cardiff University , foram desenvolvidas pesquisas ligadas ao projeto “Challenges and Risks Faced by Indigenous Peoples in Today’s Brazil: Unpacking Vulnerability and Multiple Reactions” , dentre as quais as atividades relacionadas a um subprojeto intitulado “O oportuno prete...
Chapter
Full-text available
Segundo a Organização Pan-Americana de Saúde (Opas) ligada à Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS), no último dia do ano de 2019 a OMS foi alertada sobre casos de pneumonia na cidade de Wuhan, província de Hubei, na República Popular da China, e uma semana depois as autoridades chinesas confirmaram que haviam identificado um novo tipo de coronavírus q...
Chapter
Full-text available
Este livro reúne pesquisadores e membros de comunidades indígenas de Mato Grosso e de outros estados brasileiros, especialmente na Região Amazônica, para analisar e discutir temas relacionados aos impactos socioculturais produzidos pelo modelo de desenvolvimento econômico dominante no Brasil. Como é possível notar nos capítulos aqui apresentados, a...
Chapter
Full-text available
Ao longo do processo de contatos entre os diferentes povos indígenas com não índios, que marcaram distintas práticas de apropriação territorial, violência e colonização, ocorreram diversas formas de resistência resultantes de diferentes estratégias de enfrentamento direto por meio de conflitos, alianças e mediações, de tal modo que, “desde os tempo...
Chapter
Full-text available
O histórico de agressões físicas e sociais contra os povos indígenas no território brasileiro teve um incremento significativo após a eleição de um governo de extrema direita em 2018. Desde sua posse, tem havido evidências perturbadoras de formas renovadas de violência, deslocamento e crueldade genocida e a reafirmação de atitudes xenófobas que for...
Article
Full-text available
A implantação do maior empreendimento hídrico brasileiro, o Projeto de Integração do rio São Francisco (PISF), responsável por transpor as águas do rio para o semiárido nordestino, causou diferentes efeitos na região e ocasionou a desterritorialização de diversas famílias. Parte dessas foram reterritorializadas nas 18 vilas rurais espalhadas ao lon...
Article
Full-text available
The implementation of the largest Brazilian hydrological project, theProjeto de Integração do rio São Francisco –PISF (water resources project implemented by the federal government in the Brazilian Northeast), responsible for transfering the river's waters into the semi-arid Northeast region of Brazil, had different effects in the region and caused...
Chapter
Full-text available
A Amazônia representa um dos espaços de vida e sociabilidades mais complexos e intrigantes do mundo, com interdependências socioambientais e desigualdades político-ecológicas únicas. Sua espacialidade reflete uma longa história de interações e disputas entre povos, agentes econômicos e forças políticas. Longe de ser homogênea, a região é composta p...
Chapter
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O capitalismo é frequentemente percebido e sentido como o 'elefante na sala' (seguindo uma expressão muito usada em inglês: the elephant in the room). A 'besta' (ou seja, as relações capitalistas de produção, reprodução e legitimação), porém não é um animal dócil como em filmes e desenhos animados, mas se move incontrolavelmente e causa grandes dan...
Article
Full-text available
The two economists recognise that the national state has sponsored the development of new technologies and the strategic pursuit of innovation, but also express their unmitigated preference for neoliberal policies and the need to reorganise the state apparatus according to the priorities of agribusiness, corporations and the finance. There is an im...
Book
Full-text available
Este livro reúne pesquisadores e membros de comunidades indígenas de Mato Grosso e de outros estados brasileiros, especialmente na Região Amazônica, para analisar e discutir temas relacionados aos impactos socioculturais produzidos pelo modelo de desenvolvimento econômico dominante no Brasil. Como é possível notar nos capítulos aqui apresentados, a...
Chapter
Full-text available
A narrativa guarani e kaiowá do espaço-tempo das origens do ñanderu Atanás Teixeira é abertura do volume I de nosso Guarani e Kaiowá: modos de existir e produzir territórios. A narrativa consiste – podemos dizer – em um grande poema composto por muitos versos que, então, narram a origem de um “uni-verso”. Uma versão de mundo (e não “do mundo” ou de...
Chapter
Full-text available
Este terceiro volume de Guarani e Kaiowá: modos de existir e produzir territórios é por isso também esse fogo, um encontro com gentes guarani e kaiowá e àquelas achegadas a elas. Um encontro junto ao fogo de escuta da palavra, sentadas e sentados em conversa com Gileandro Barbosa Pedro e Ebifânia da Silva Ortiz em “Ava reko como resistência dos kai...
Chapter
Full-text available
Diferença é uma palavra complicada ou até mesmo difícil de se lidar. Pode reforças o contraste entre pessoas e situações, ou pode ser usada para exacerbar supostas distinções que na prática não se confirmam. Diferenças são, portanto, anunciadas, sofridas, vividas e contestadas. Afetam narrativas, comportamentos e, em última instância, atitudes polí...
Article
Full-text available
Pensar a Amazônia é pensar na imensidão, no superlativo e no muito mais por pensar e aprender a perguntar. Espaço de vida milenar, múltiplo e complexo, que nos remete continuamente da escala continental a problemas locais, quotidianos e setorizados, que também constituem a vida e a política da região. Muito além de imagens estereotipadas de fragili...
Article
Full-text available
The article seeks to discuss the political perspective of indigenous peoples in their effort to resist aggression and reclaim back land and opportunities lost to development. The very general and the highly specific condition of indigenous groups in today’s market-based globalization is directly connected with the growing interest of social scienti...
Book
Full-text available
A Amazônia parece não caber na academia oficial, muito menos nos gabinetes da burocracia e nos conselhos administrativos das corporações, ainda que sejam esses alguns dos principais atores decidindo sobre o seu futuro. Há pois grande necessidade de buscar novas maneiras de pensar e de promover um diálogo amplo entre os grupos sociais afetados pelo...
Article
Full-text available
The article deals with the ontological configuration and political appropriation of difference in modern, capitalist societies. Against fragmented accounts of difference, it is examined the evolution from situations of wide socio-spatial diversity to the gradual instrumentalisation and selective hierarchisation of those elements of difference that...
Book
Full-text available
A proposta para os afetos que “trajetam” este livro foi lançada ainda no início do segundo semestre de 2020. Inusitada para os padrões de uma ciência da geografia com “G” ou “C” maiúsculo, frequentemente séria demais, formal e pouco afeita a outros devaneios a não a ser aqueles das “bases teóricas” e das “metodologias e procedimentos científicos”,...
Chapter
Full-text available
Não por mérito pessoal, mas apenas em razão de acumular décadas de trabalho acadêmico, tive oportunidades maravilhosas de conhecer localidades interessantíssimas e conduzir pesquisas como as mencionadas acima (haveria muitos outros relatos como esses para compartilhar), as quais me permitem arriscar algumas observações gerais sobre o que gostaria d...
Book
Full-text available
O livro abrange algumas das mais relevantes reflexões acadêmicas sobre a trajetória dos Guarani e Kaiowá no sul do Mato Grosso do Sul produzidas nos últimos anos e, além disso, aponta para as novas demandas teóricas e analíticas necessárias para dar conta de uma realidade sócio-espacial profundamente injusta e instável. A obra contém contribuição d...

Questions

Question (1)
Question
"Britain’s universities are in freefall – and saving them will take more than funding", Gaby Hinsliff (The Guardian, 29 Mar 2024)
"This week, it was the University of Essex’s turn to hit the headlines by declaring a £13.8m shortfall, blaming a 38% drop in applications from foreign postgrad students for its plans to freeze pay and promotions. But it merely joins the University and College Union’s growing list of, so far, 39 institutions planning cuts, ranging from ancient Russell Group names to relative minnows, and from modest voluntary redundancy schemes to the £100m savings that Coventry University plans to find over the next two years.
What’s striking is that it’s seemingly solid, middle-ranking research institutions, not those bumping along the bottom of league tables, that are starting to hit the panic button. At best, a miserable summer beckons for lecturers at risk of losing their jobs – another I spoke to was preparing to mark his students’ finals and reapply for his post in the same anxious week – while students face a no-frills future of fewer choices and more uncertainty.
At worst, some are asking how the sector would cope if an established university goes bust. Since that’s never happened before, nobody seems entirely sure how it would work: what would happen to students halfway through their degrees, or whether one failure might spook creditors into pulling the plug on others.
What we’re seeing isn’t some slow, careful rebalancing of the system, done with teenagers’ best interests at heart. Instead, it’s just another messy, confused decline of something Britain was genuinely once good at, which contributed billions to the economy while projecting soft power abroad. Fixing it will take more than just funding, although a rise in tuition fees now seems inevitable. What’s needed is a more fundamental restructuring, and an honest debate about exactly what – and who – a modern university education is really for. Right now, that’s the essay question to which nobody seems to have a clear answer."

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