Internationalization in higher education: Critiquing the critical turn

• In Event: Internationalization and higher education: adopting global perspectives

Proposal

Internationalization, especially in the form of student mobility, has a long history in HE, especially during the Cold War, when schemes like Fulbright were used by the competing powers to promote their political ideologies. However, since the end of the Cold War it has grown exponentially, become central to many universities and emerged as a key thematic area of study within higher education (HE) (de Wit, 2002; Tight, 2022). For much of this contemporary history, which has been defined by its increasingly commercial nature (Rizvi, 2022), internationalization has paradoxically been portrayed as a broadly positive intervention, with humanitarian, and cosmopolitan associations. While recent reviews indicate that such positive associations with internationalization persist, the field is becoming more critically oriented with greater emphasis on power relations, inequalities, and social responsibility (George Mwangi et al., 2018; Mittelmeier & Yang, 2022). This shift towards greater criticality is linked to calls for change by those disillusioned with the dominance of neoliberal and commercialized approaches – and by a new generation of critical scholars employing post colonial theories. With few notable exceptions (e.g. Beck, 2021; Mulvey, 2022), little research has investigated this critical turn. We analyze that turn to understand its development, core tenets, major concerns, and to assess its usefulness for analyzing the shifting nature of and multiple motives for internationalization across the globe. We further consider its ability to provide a corrective to critiques of the foundational literature.

While recognizing that a range of critical responses have emerged in relation to internationalization (e.g. Brooks & Waters, 2011; Larsen, 2016; Lomer, 2017; Rizvi, 2007; Shields, 2019; Stier, 2004; Wihlborg, 2019), we identify two major strands of (self-proclaimed) critical scholarship: 1) the ‘countermovement’ and 2) ‘critical internationalization studies’ (CIS) and focus on the latter. We argue that both strands have, for different reasons, significant limitations. Specifically, we argue that the ‘countermovement,’ based in soft critical approaches, steered internationalization towards more socially progressive and equitable aims, now represents the mainstream approach and does not provide a significant departure from the tenets of previous scholarship.

CIS adopts a priori theoretical stances, and draws on postcolonial theory, to argue that internationalization is positioned within a dominant social imaginary which began in the West at the dawn of European colonialism, and has expanded to become the dominant global social imaginary (Stein et al., 2016; Stein 2017b). Its core analytic themes are those of racism, appropriation, coercion, and dominance of the other. It is based in capital accumulation and the appropriation of resources by the Global North/West from the Global South and argues that such an enduring ‘modern/colonial global imaginary’ continues to support capitalist social relations, to normalize liberal Western notions of politics, governance and knowledge, and to naturalize a racialized hierarchy of existence. We analyze the CIS, and while acknowledging its many contributions to the field, most notably, challenging the ‘unconditional good’ of internationalization and stressing a political perspective, we argue that it is constructed around a ‘modern/colonial global imaginary’ that is rooted in a bipolar view of geopolitics in which the West is juxtaposed against the rest of the world. It reflects an occidental (Buruma & Margalit, 2004) form of Western bias and exceptionalism. We identify the limitations of that framing and argue that it promotes stalemate and stasis, undermines liberal values, obscures agency, denies the increasingly complex and multi-polar nature of geopolitics, and distorts understanding of internationalization in the world. We further suggest that this framing cannot provide a basis to explain the nature and motives in many nations in which the ‘modern/colonial global imaginary’, is not the organizing explanatory frame of internationalization.

We assert that the CIS approach is becoming synonymous with ‘criticality’ in the field and argue instead for a plurality of critical approaches. We suggest alternatives that may provide greater scope for understanding internationalization globally: eschewing Western exceptionalism and developing alternative views of universality; employing theoretical and methodological diversity and flexibility; and developing new understanding of individual agency and social structure. With renewed calls for change in the wake of the pandemic, increasing populism-nationalism, the urgency of climate change, and predictions for new forms of internationalization on the horizon (e.g. Beck, 2021; de Wit & Altbach, 2021) we may be on the cusp of a new direction in internationalization scholarship and practice.

Author

• Annette Bamberger, Bar Ilan University