Internationalization and Geopolitics of Knowledge Production in the Embattled Ukraine

This paper examines the participants’ responses through the lens of decolonization/de-Russification of the Ukrainian discourse and legacy of higher learning. This perspective emerges as critically important in the postcolonial context of Ukrainian higher education, given that the Soviet legacy (e.g., feudal, command-and-control, one-man management styles of communication and administration) tended to dominate the models of governance in the Ukrainian universities several decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Studies in this domain indicate that the processes of re-imagination of intellectual leadership have been gravely affected by the Soviet/Russian narratives of anti-Westernization. Thesenarratives have shaped skepsis toward critical inquiry and innovation in academic environments, and spearheaded a surrogate academic freedom, while nurturing risk aversion, responsibility-shunning, and post-truthing. Wrapped into a greater anti-Westernization discourse, promoted by Russian politicians worldwide, the Ukrainian universities often lingered on periphery of global higher education, while trying to serve competing geopolitical interests and coalitions, solicit multi-lateral donorship and trade in services, and retain the illusion of independence all at the same time.