What Can Decolonial and Abolitionist Critiques Teach the Field of Higher Education?

In this article, I offer a critical reading of the higher education field-imaginary and its orienting assumptions, inspired by decolonial and abolitionist critiques. These critiques identify the constitutive and ongoing violence that underwrites modern institutions of higher education and, thus, the higher education field itself. In so doing, they challenge scholars and practitioners to reckon with the implication of higher education in systemic harm and unsustainability and to reimagine higher education as we know it. However, this reimagining should move beyond the common tendency to aspire to transcend the existing imaginary without disinvesting from the harmful promises it offers.