Hegemony, education and flight. Gramscian overtures

Abstract

The old continent’s former colonies and protectorates are points of origin for several migration flows. Fears related to immigration often lead people to project the image of an ‘invasion’ that will threaten the existence of an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1993), any sense of ‘collective ethos’, and the hitherto accepted social relations of production. This shifts focus from the changing exploitative relations of capitalism itself, characterised by the threat or actual realisation of the flight of capital and labour, and places emphasis on the hegemonic discourse of ‘invaders at the gates’ of the city, region, or country. The degree of the threat varies according to skin colour and it remains to be seen how Ukrainians fleeing from the ravages of war will be treated in this context in comparison to others in similar situations, such as, to provide one example, Syrians. The chapter is written from the perspective of someone ensconced in a country that once saw flights of thousands of people, providing labour power, to different corners of the world, notably North Africa in the distant past and to Britain and British colonies of settlement in historically more recent times: Australia, Canada and the United States, and, to a lesser degree, New Zealand. Malta subsequently shifted from being an exporter of labour power to becoming an importer of the same, as flight took on a different trajectory with the country developing a relatively strong postcolonial economy and being located on the central Mediterranean migration route. The booming economy required foreign workers, in jobs at all ends, and, because Malta is in the midst of a migration route, employers have been taking advantage of this. This chapter will explore the possible implications of this flight scenario for education.