ABSTRACT
This chapter employs the use of critical geography to explore the globalization of higher education and the contributions it has made toward conceiving of mattering spaces. Spaces that matter and those who inhabit them are analyzed along with those which matter less and to whom they do or do not matter. This chapter examines these relationships and how they unfold amidst crisis: specifically, the education of refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict. Key insights are drawn from strands of critical geography such as critical human geography, critical geopolitics, and political geography. Application of these theories are particularly important to the analysis of historical data on the refugee crisis during and after World War II and the response of higher education institutions in the pre-globalization era. Such a critical analysis of historical response offers an essential backdrop to understanding how the era of globalization has altered the ability of higher education to respond to crisis and illuminates new ways of thinking about the mattering spaces formed both directly and indirectly as a result.
