Making space for an international branch campus: Monash University Malaysia

This paper presents findings from an empirical study of an international branch campus established through a partnership between a Malaysian property development conglomerate, the Sunway Group, and Monash University, an Australian university known for its global aspirations. Using Lefebvre's concept of social space we analyse the perceived, conceived and lived spaces that constitute the campus of Monash University Malaysia and its urban setting in the township of Bandar Sunway. Dramatically transformed from a disused mining site and showcased as a 'progressive' urban project, the township symbolises the Sunway Group's commercial success and political pragmatism in managing the dynamics of Malaysia's ethnicised political economy. The broader student experience suggests that the configurations of power that shape ethnic and class relations at the scale of the national are reproduced in the composition of the student body, in students' on-campus interactions and in the rhythms of their everyday lives within the township. By attending to the material, symbolic and imaginary dimensions of one international branch campus, we provide a more nuanced and textured understanding of the globalisation of higher education, highlighting different forms of agency exercised by key actors.