The ‘University’ as Market: Agency, Networks and Boundaries.

Current controversies about the University’s status and identity today are founded on a fundamental dilemma: it must maintain its autonomy and academic freedom while also appearing to be fully engaged with the forces of globalization and commodification. It is argued that a relational analysis based on the sociology of markets may move this debate beyond its current impasse. This paper takes up boundary concepts in order to extend and refine our understanding of the “market” known as the University. An analysis of the concepts of agency and boundedness as mediated through Readings’ (1988) and Callon’s theories of (subjective) singularity and (product-based) singularization, respectively, will thus be comprehensively explored. In so doing, the author expects to shed new light on the ‘University’ and its reflexive capacities in the technological economy.