Let's Talk About Decolonial Internationalization
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/28169344.17Keywords:
Internationalization of higher education, decolonization, knowledge production, Canadian Universities, international education, higher education studies, critical internationalization studiesAbstract
There is increasing pressure on higher education institutions (HEIs) to adopt internationalization strategies. The phenomenon of internationalization of higher education is described as “the intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution to society” (De Wit et al., 2015, p.281). In higher education, we face a central problem. While universities promote internationalization strategies, they spread Eurocentric ways of knowing, standards, and norms as global. International mobility is predominantly a student and faculty movement from the East to the West. This mobility disseminates the colonial global educational engagement where the West seems to be the ultimate knowledge producer. The challenge of HEIs is to interrupt the colonial patterns in international education. This position paper examines the hierarchy of knowledge production in higher education through a decolonizing framework. Subsequently, it proposes a decolonial internationalization in the case of Canadian Universities.
References
Ahenakew, C. (2016). Grafting Indigenous ways of knowing onto non-Indigenous ways of being: The (underestimated) challenges of a decolonial imagination. International Review of Qualitative Research, 9(3), 323–340. https://doi.org/10.1525/irqr.2016.9.3.323 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/irqr.2016.9.3.323
Altbach, P. G. (2004). Globalisation and the university: Myths and realities in an unequal world. Tertiary Education and Management, 10(1), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:TEAM.0000012239.55136.4b DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13583883.2004.9967114
Andreotti, V., Ahenakew, C., & Cooper, G. (2011). Epistemological pluralism: Ethical and pedagogical challenges in higher education. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 7(1), 40–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/117718011100700104 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/117718011100700104
Andreotti, V. de O., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Hunt, D. (2015). Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher education. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 4(1), Article 1. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22168
Battiste, M. (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Purich Publishing Limited.
Beck, K. (2012). Globalization/s: Reproduction and resistance in the internationalization of higher education. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue Canadienne de l’éducation, 35(3), 133–148.
Betts, R. F. (2012). Decolonization a brief history of the word. In Beyond empire and nation (pp. 23-37). Brill. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004260443_004
Buckner, E., & Stein, S. (2020). What counts as internationalization? Deconstructing the internationalization imperative. Journal of Studies in International Education, 24(2), 151–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319829878 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319829878
CBC. (2015, June 1). Truth and Reconciliation chair urges Canada to adopt UN declaration on Indigenous Peoples. Canadian Broadcasting Company. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/truth-and-reconciliation-chair-urges-canada-to-adoptun-declaration-on-indigenous-peoples-1.3096225
Concordia University (n.d.). Public scholar: Ezgi Ozyonum. Public Scholar Program. https://www.concordia.ca/sgs/public-scholars/alumni/2021/ezgi-ozyonum.html
de Sousa Santos, B. (2007). Beyond abyssal thinking: From global lines to ecologies of knowledges. Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 30(1), 45–89.
De Wit, H., Hunter, F., Howard L., and Egron Polak, E. (Eds). (2015). Internationalisation of higher education. Brussels: European Parliament, Directorate-General for Internal Policies.
Dei-Sharpe, J. and Ozyonum, E. (forthcoming). Beyond EDI: A Case of Student-led Activism in a Canadian (Quebec) University. [Accepted chapter proposal and chapter submitted for publication]. In The Bloomsbury Handbooks of Crises and Transformative Leadership in
Higher Education (CTLHE). Volume Title: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Crises and
Transformative Leadership: Critically Engaging Issues of Diversity.
Deloria, V. (1995). Red earth, white lies: Native Americans and the myth of scientific fact. Scribner.
Dussel, E. (1995). The invention of the Americas: Eclipse of "the Other" and the myth of modernity. Burns & Oates.
Dussel, E. (1996). The underside of modernity: Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty, Taylor, and the philosophy of liberation. Humanities Press.
Dussel, E. (1998). Beyond Eurocentrism: The world-system and the limits of modernity. In Beyond Eurocentrism: The world-system and the limits of modernity (pp. 3–31). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822378426-003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw3dt.5
Dussel, E. (2000). Europe, Modernity, and Eurocentrism. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 465.
Escobar, A. (2007). Worlds and knowledges otherwise. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 179–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162506 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162506
Gaudry, A., & Lorenz, D. (2018). Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: Navigating the different visions for indigenizing the Canadian Academy. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 14(3), 218–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/1177180118785382 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1177180118785382
Government of Canada. (2019, August 22). Canada’s International Education Strategy (2019-2024). GAC. https://www.international.gc.ca/education/strategy-2019-2024-strategie.aspx?lang=eng
Grosfoguel, R. (2011). Decolonizing post-colonial studies and paradigms of political-economy: Transmodernity, decolonial thinking, and global coloniality. TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.5070/T411000004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5070/T411000004
Grosfoguel, R. (2013). The structure of knowledge in westernized universities: Epistemic racism/sexism and the four genocides/epistemicide of the long 16th century. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 11(1), 73–90.
Gumus, S., Gok, E., & Esen, M. (2020). A review of research on international student mobility: Science mapping the existing knowledge base. Journal of Studies in International Education, 24(5), 495 –517. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319893651 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319893651
Ibarra-Colado, E. (2006). Organization studies and epistemic coloniality in Latin America: Thinking otherness from the margins. Organization, 13(4), 463–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508406065851 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508406065851
Knight, J. (2014). Is internationalisation of higher education having an identity crisis? In A. Maldonado-Maldonado & R. M. Bassett (Eds.), The forefront of international higher education (Vol. 42, pp. 75–87). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7085-0_5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7085-0_5
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548
Marginson, S. (2014). Student Self-Formation in International Education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 18(1), 6–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315313513036 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315313513036
Maringe, F., Foskett, N., & Woodfield, S. (2013). Emerging internationalisation models in an uneven global terrain: Findings from a global survey. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 43(1), 9–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2013.746548 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2013.746548
Mignolo, W. (2000). Local histories/global designs. Princeton University Press.
Mignolo, W. D. (2002). The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference. South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57–96. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-101-1-57 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-101-1-57
Mignolo, W. D. (2007). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 449–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162647 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162647
Mignolo, W. D. (2009). Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7–8), 159–181. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409349275 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409349275
OECD. (2014). Education at a Glance 2014: OECD Indicators. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/eag-2014-en DOI: https://doi.org/10.1787/eag-2014-en
Pashby, K. (2011). Questions for global citizenship education in the context of the ‘New Imperialism’: For whom, by whom? In Postcolonial Perspectives on Global Citizenship Education. Routledge.
Perry, B. (2015). Disrupting the mantra of multiculturalism: Hate crime in Canada. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(13), 1637–1654. https://doi-org/10.1177/0002764215588816 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215588816
Pidgeon, M. (2016). More than a checklist: meaningful indigenous inclusion in higher education. Social Inclusion, 4(1), 77–91. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i1.436 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i1.436
Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America. International Sociology, 15(2), 215–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580900015002005 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580900015002005
Quijano, A. (2007). Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 168–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601164353 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601164353
Shome, R. (2009). Post-colonial reflections on the ‘internationalization’ of Cultural Studies. Cultural Studies, 23(5–6), 694–719. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380903132322 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380903132322
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. Zed Books.
Stein, S. (2017a). Contested imaginaries of global justice in the internationalization of higher education [University of British Columbia]. https://doi.org/10.14288/1.0353186
Stein, S. (2017b). The persistent challenges of addressing epistemic dominance in higher education: Considering the case of curriculum internationalization. Comparative Education Review, 61(S1), S25–S50. https://doi.org/10.1086/690456 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/690456
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (2016). Decolonization and higher education. In M. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. Singapore: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_479-1
Stein, S., & Silva, J. E. da. (2020). Challenges and complexities of decolonizing internationalization in a time of global crises. ETD - Educação Temática Digital, 22(3), 546–566. https://doi.org/10.20396/etd.v22i3.8659310 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20396/etd.v22i3.8659310
Thielsch, A. (2020). Listening out and dealing with otherness. A postcolonial approach to higher education teaching. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 19(3), 227–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022219832459 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022219832459
Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1-40. https://journals.scholarsportal.info/details/19298692/v01i0001/nfp_dinam.xml
Univcan. (2014, December). Internationalization at Canadian Universities: Quick facts. Universities Canada. https://www.univcan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/quick-factsinternationalization-survey-2014.pdf
Universities Canada. (2019). Equity, diversity and inclusion at Canadian universities: Report on the 2019 survey. https://www.univcan.ca/media-room/publications/equity-diversity-andinclusion-at-canadian-universities-report-on-the-2019-survey/
Wilder, C. S. (2013). Ebony & ivy: Race, slavery, and the troubled history of America’s universities (First U.S. edition). Bloomsbury Press.
Wynter, S. (2003). Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation--An argument. CR: The New Centennial Review, 3(3), 257–337. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Ezgi Ozyonum
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), you are free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) under the following terms:
-
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
-
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
