“Authentic othering”: strategy and tactics of “viscursive privileging” in sustainable higher education institutions

Purpose Despite numerous institutionalised gender-inclusion measures, the gender imbalance in technical and engineering study programmes remains very high in Germany. Some universities have developed strategies for integrating sustainability at the institutional and study programme level to address women students, especially in technical study programmes. This article examines the question of how viscursive privilege manifests itself in strategies and tactics relating to gender and sustainability in higher education, especially in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) study programmes. Design/methodology/approach Informed by Foucault's discourse-analytical methodology and Knorr-Cetina's (1999) approach of “viscourse”, we focus on the emergent, performative, and intentional institutional discourses and viscourses in higher education. Specifically, we analyse the viscursive practices of privileging gendered (and racialised) positionings in the institutional strategies of sustainability, drawing on reconstructive image interpretation in website analysis, complemented with excerpts of interview data with higher education professionals. Findings Overall, we identify two discursive “tactics” (as Foucault refers to them) within the discursive institutional strategies of “authentic othering” in higher education, namely the tactic of authenticity as performative visibility and the tactic of tokenised visualising in marking racial diversity and gender differences. In the contested terrain of discursive organising, we nevertheless observe practices of resistance and find spaces of partial openings in different study programmes. Originality/value This research is original because it applies a Foucauldian perspective to explore privilege as a discursive practice in higher education. It uniquely examines how sustainable study programmes are linked to gendered discursive strategies. Methodologically, it innovates by applying a viscourse analysis inspired by Knorr-Cetina (1999). The study highlights discursive tactics from a Foucauldian perspective.