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Chay Brooks BA (Hons), MPhil

PhD Candidate, Churchill College

My research focuses on the political and cultural geographies of international education during the early years of the Cold War. Specifically I investigate how American educational agencies operated through philanthropic and state supported programmes to promote American values and foreign policy objectives.

Biography

Qualifications

Research

My research explores the role of education in international affairs (c.1940-1969) through a focus on the major American philanthropic organisations and their related educational activities and grants. Among the vast range of projects endorsed by philanthropists, my research specifically deals with the New York-based Institute of International Education (IIE). The IIE concerned itself with the creation of experts in ‘developing’ countries, cultural exchanges between universities and strategic allies, and the coordination of educational projects for the State Department (through the administration of the Fulbright Awards), US Army and the Ford Foundation. Building upon the current research trends examining academic worlds within the British Empire and the geographies of knowledge, this study seeks to show how the IIE, through the development and support of strategic projects and centres, helped position the US as powerful broker in international affairs.

In the context of the decolonisation of the British Empire, McCarthyism, and the development of an ‘international community’, education became a means to formalise ‘expertise’ and foster political, economic and cultural relations between states. The Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation were particularly influential parties in promoting education as a central tenet in social and political affairs. Primarily, they were important sources of financial support in international education but they were also strong advocates of internationalism, supporting organisations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, former colonial universities and the burgeoning research field of Area Studies. The use of the archives of the philanthropic organisations therefore provides an insight into the geographical imaginations behind international education projects and how these mentalities shaped the political prerogatives of the United States of America.

Teaching