Afro-Diasporic Centered Internationalization: Blending Research and Practice

• In Event: Osotua and Umoja - Bridging Borders, Building Futures: Decolonized Virtual and Hybrid Collaborations for Global Learning and Faculty-Student Engagement

Abstract

While much of the foundational literature on internationalization of higher education has its roots in US-centric and Western European-centric frameworks, this session will explore emerging frameworks for internationalization that have emerged on the African continent and among Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  This decentering of the West and engagement with theory and practice that centers the African diaspora has produced innovative models for global engagement that will inform our practice at all types of institutions.  This session will also explore the impact of new frameworks on Collaborative Online Virtual Learning (COVL) and Virtual Exchange, as well as other emerging practices that facilitate equitable participation in global learning.  
This session will explore reframing internationalization through an Afro-Diasporic lens and the potential impact on partnerships among institutions of higher education across the African diaspora.  Much of the foundational literature on internationalization originated from US-centric or Western European-centric frameworks.  In 2022, Heleta and Chasi introduced a new definition of internationalization that drew on the realities of doing this work in a South African context and in other contexts where "historical complexities and injustices" cannot be ignored.  This includes the context of the United States of America, where the global engagement experiences of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have not been included in frameworks for internationalization, despite a long history of international engagement across the diaspora (Diabate, 2023; Poloma, 2023; Tilley et al., 2023). Hope's framework on Black Internationalization (2022) offers a new vision of internationalization for HBCUs, drawing on the literature on Black Internationalism (Blain & Gill, 2019).  As these new frameworks emerged, a shift was occurring in the field of international education.  Following the murder of George Floyd, there was an intellectual reckoning, which resulted in a change in the dialogue.  There was a call for changes in language and practice that encouraged decentering the West, decolonizing practices, and mutuality in engagement (Clayton-Pedersen et. Al., 2022; Gozik & Barclay Hamil, 2022).



 

Author

• Dawn Michele Whitehead, American Association of Colleges and Universities