Abstract

The political neoliberal ideology of enhancing competition so markets thrive, creates inequalities (del Cerro Santamaria 2020). This has marketised Higher Education (Maisura and Cole 2017) arguably altering the ethos/role of universities as providing a ‘public good’ or ‘community’ (see Martinez and Garcia 2000: unpaginated), and subsequently, has altered the way individuals relate to others (Bauman 1993). Under this ideology, individuals are viewed as responsible for providing solutions to their own problems (Martinez and Garcia 2000), are driven to gaining competitive advantage over others, rather than developing civic and social responsibility for others (del Cerro Santamaria 2020). Through this lens, this paper, using data from an online survey about students’ perceptions of on-campus safety at a university in the north of England, shows how some students view ‘others’ as dangerous, rather than view them as (potentially) vulnerable groups on the margins of an inequitable neoliberal society. The porous borders of the university campuses amplify students’ perceptions of dangerous others and students’ suggestions to ‘keep out’ such others arguably serve to aggravate rather than relieve their perceptions of unsafety. If the university continues to lock-down its campuses, as it has during the global pandemic, closing its doors to ‘unauthorised’ others, the upshot is entrenching further an exclusive community of the privileged unless universities can reclaim their ethos/role as institutions with the power to educate about and influence social issues (Giroux 2014), and to ultimately triumph over the political and corporate interests of the capitalist elite (del Cerro Santamaria 2020).