Interrogating Internationalization: Complex Relations in a Globalizing Campus

Higher education faces new challenges in a world more globally connected than before and yet more fractured and unequal. Amidst growing critiques of the ‘edubusiness’ that is the predominant discourse of the internationalization of higher education, notions of global citizenship, intercultural and international competencies are used to legitimate the benefits of, and even serve as an imperative to internationalize higher education institutions. There is scant scrutiny of internationalization itself, even though it offers rich possibilities for the changing nature of higher education.

This presentation will explore the complex process of internationalization through the frame of postcolonial analysis. This process will be illustrated by data from a Canadian study that seeks to understand the educational relations and practices of a globalizing campus through the experiences of people engaged in the process.