Abstract:
An ethnographic analysis of the pedagogic interaction online in an internationalised MBA unit showed how cultural difference was produced both as a curricular asset, and as regulative troubles. The expressions of relational cultural identities thus produced are further analysed with reference to Bernstein's (2000) typology of pedagogic identities, interpreted as the points of suture or articulation (Hall 1996) between student identities, student aspirations and the subjectivities offered through curricular and pedagogic design. The identities invoked through such mechanisms and the semiotic means available, are shown to be discursively restricted to overly deferential and retrospective notions of the culturally determined Other, with limited expressions of the emerging 'market', hybrid or cosmopolitan identities which such sites could potentially and profitably facilitate. This analysis is used to reflect on the cultural politics of limiting imagination in the wider context of commodified education in globalised markets.