Orientalism: Alive and Well? The Contradictions and Paradoxes Surrounding Canadian Policy Discourse on International Student Mobility

Both AUCC’s recent survey (2014) and the federal government’s latest international education strategy (2014) report that student mobility is one of Canada’s most high profile policy issues. However, in analyzing policy discourses on inward and outward student mobility and its value to Canada’s academic, socio-cultural and economic fabric, several troubling paradoxes become apparent. Is internationalization yet another manifestation of Orientalism where “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet?”