The Global Sorting Machine: An Examination of Neoracism Among International Students and Postdoctoral Researchers

Introduction Universities find themselves at the nexus of seemingly competing, if not contradictory, demands in the global knowledge society. They are asked both to serve society through the production and dissemination of knowledge for the benefit of a global polity and to generate knowledge, skills, and status through individual human capital development. The global research university, which now must meet these needs and others in the global sphere, as well as in national and local spheres, to attain and maintain legitimacy (Marginson, 2010), is often positioned within this tension between public and private interests. Within the contest between public (as a fungible global good) and private (tied up in individuals’ human capital) knowledge pursuits (Metcalfe & Fenwick, 2009) is the relative positioning of individuals within the academy with varying rights and access to these public and private goods.