THE POSSIBILITIES AND POTENTIAL CIRCULARITIES OF CRITICAL INTERNATIONALIZATION STUDIES Sharon Stein, University of British Columbia Learning at Intercultural Intersections, March 2019 1 HAS INTERNATIONALIZATION “LOST ITS WAY”? de Wit (2014), “internationalisation in higher education is at a turning point and the concept of internationalisation requires an update, refreshment and fine-tuning taking into account the new world and higher education order” (p. 97) 2 CRITICAL INTERNATIONALIZATION STUDIES •Uneven global power relations, representations, resource flows; •Problematize and complicate depolicitized approaches to internationalization; and •New possible approaches to engagement, pedagogy, knowledge production 3 POTENTIAL CIRCULARITIES OF CRITIQUE “‘OK, I Get It! Now Tell Me How to Do It!’: Why We Can’t Just Tell You How to Do Critical Multicultural Education”, DiAngelo and Sensoy (2010): • Complexity and socio-historical context; • Sensitivity to ongoing patterns of inequality; • Stamina and courage to address these patterns; • Continuous learning (and unlearning); • Humility about ignorances; • Self-reflexivity about complicity in harm; • Away from a desire for quick fixes; • “[A] complex, life-long process” (p. 98). 4 "WHY I CAN’T JUST TELL YOU HOW TO DO ETHICAL INTERNATIONALIZATION” •Different theories of change (theory of change = diagnosis of problem + proposed response) •Different layers of intervention •Different contextual specificities enable or foreclose different possibilities •The im/possibilities of ethical internationalization 5 SOCIAL CARTOGRAPHIES Visual pedagogical devices that… • challenge learned desires for consensus, coherence, neutrality and quick resolutions; • build stamina to face the difficulties of deep learning processes and to sit with contradictions, complexity, uncertainty; • shed light on risks for error and illusion in knowledge production, and the partiality of any one perspective; • intended to intervene in reality rather than represent reality; • support people in making their own (better informed) decisions about pertinent knowledge in their own situational contexts; • create spaces where people can engage in difficult conversations without relationships breaking down. 6 7 8 No-reform/ Neoliberal analysis e.g. economic rationales to grow and diversify the international student market; emphasizing expected revenues, taxes, job creation 9 10 SOFT-REFORM/LIBERAL ANALYSIS e.g. capacity building; ‘aid not trade’; cultural competency trainings; changing the narrative to embrace of international students’ ‘contributions’ 11 12 RADICAL-REFORM/CRITICAL ANALYSIS e.g. fight tuition raises; diversify international student body through ‘global affirmative action’; link to colonial histories + current patterns of extraction 13 14 BEYOND-REFORM/DECOLONIAL ANALYSIS Does not offer solutions, but invites people to:  Interrupt satisfaction with colonial entitlements;  Sit with their (unevenly distributed) complicity in harm and learn from our collective mess;  Reduce harm as we experiment with alternatives (not as solutions with guarantees, but to learn from inevitable mistakes) 15 16 LAYERS OF ENGAGEMENT ways of doing (methodologies) ways of knowing (epistemologies) way of being (ontology) 17 LAYERS OF QUESTIONS: INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS Soft-reform/ Liberal approach (methodological) How can we ensure that international students, their host countries, and their home countries benefit from their experience abroad? How can we foster positive engagements between international and domestic students? How can we prepare culturally sensitive staff? Radical-reform/ Critical approach (epistemological) How can we recruit a more globally representative student body? What promises do Canadian institutions offer to potential international students, and how do these compare with benefits actually received? How can we address racism in all areas of the institution (admissions, curriculum design, evaluation, etc.)? Beyond-reform/ Decolonial approach (ontological) What economic and geopolitical histories have made Canada a desired location for international study? How does expanding access for international students to Canadian institutions affect Working with impossibilities the uneven global education landscape? How might we 18 denaturalize the presumed superiority of Western education? LAYERS OF QUESTIONS: INTERNATIONAL SERVICE Soft-reform/ Liberal approach (methodological) How can service abroad inspire students to become leaders with a sense of global responsibility? How can more diverse students gain access to these programs? How can international service trips prompt students to recognize their relative advantage? Radical-reform/ Critical approach (epistemological) What uneven structures enables certain students to travel, and not others? How does the service relation risk reproducing ‘saviorism’ and inequality? What pedagogical scaffolding do students need in order to critically attend to their responses to being abroad, so that they can minimize harm to others? Beyond-reform/ Decolonial approach (ontological) How can visiting students learn to listen to the needs, desires, and dreams of host communities? How should it be handled when the ethics of visiting students conflict with those of the host community? How do we prepare students to deal with the heterogeneity of theWorking host community, and to revere their gifts with impossibilities without romanticizing or idealizing them? 19 LAYERS OF QUESTIONS: INTERNATIONAL CURRICULUM Soft-reform/ Liberal approach (methodological) How can all disciplines incorporate an international dimension to their programs? How can we encourage international students to share their knowledge in the classroom to foster epistemic pluralism? What are the essential knowledge and skills needed to ensure that all students graduate with cultural competency? Radical-reform/ Critical approach (epistemological) How can we ensure that diverse knowledges are not simply included, but valued, supported, and rewarded? What is needed to build enduring institutional capacity for teaching and research outside Western knowledge? How can we ensure that all students gain an appreciation for the gifts of minoritized knowledges? Beyond-reform/ Decolonial approach (ontological) How can we shift from the search for absolute truth to appreciation of contextual relevance? How can we prepare students to navigate complexity and uncertainty in a rapidly changing world with no clear epistemic, political, or moral Working withlearn impossibilities authorities? How can students to distinguish between the known, unknown, and the unknowable? 20 ALTERNATIVE ENDINGS Working with impossibilities 21 ENDING 1: METHODOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE How can these different approaches to internationalization (including at the epistemological and ontological layers) noninstrumentally inform the methodological imperative of changing ways of doing, particularly for day-to-day activities and responsibilities? Working with impossibilities 22 CONTEXTUAL QUESTIONS, PT I • What are the specifics of your context and how do they affect how proposed changes are likely to be received? • What are your own orienting questions, concerns, and horizons of hope with regard to internationalization? What are those of your institution/organisation? How will you navigate between this gap if they are not closely aligned? How can you hold/work with this tension without feeling overwhelmed by it? •Given where your organisation/department currently is, what would be the next step that could deepen existing conversations and possibly lead to practical changes? What experiments in practice are safe and worthy enough to try? Working with impossibilities 23 CONTEXTUAL QUESTIONS, PT II • How can you develop the necessary stamina (for yourself, and/or for your organisation) to engage in change in the longterm, and the necessary self-reflexivity and humility to be taught by the process of long-term change? • How might your proposed responses to the problems of internationalization recreate at least some elements of the problems you are seeking to address? How can you minimise this possibility, and what risks might be unavoidable? • What kinds of strategies or frameworks do you have in place to periodically assess the impacts (both intended and unintended) of changes made to practice? Working with impossibilities 24 ENDING 2: INVITATION TO SIT WITH IM/POSSIBILITIES The im/possibility of imagining internationalization that: • Does not presume the continuity of the existing system (including capitalism, the nation-state, social mobility, separability, and universal knowledge); • Recognizes we cannot think our way out of a habit of being; • Is not oriented by inherited colonial entitlements; and, • Grapples with our complicity in harm, without looking away, or seeking escape via denial or immediate redemption. Why do these feel impossible? What if we started with impossibility: By admitting we don’t know what to do, what might we be able to hear or imagine that we couldn’t hear before? We can’t know in advance, and we can only begin the work once we have interrupted our satisfactions with the existing system and its promises 25 26 THANK YOU! QUESTIONS? sharon.stein@ubc.ca criticalinternationalization.net decolonialfutures.net Relevant resources: • Stein, S, Andreotti, V. & Suša, R. (2019). Pluralizing frameworks for global ethics in the internationalization of higher education in Canada. Canadian Journal of Higher Education. • Stein, S. (2017). Internationalization for an uncertain future: Tensions, paradoxes, and possibilities. The Review of Higher Education, 41(1), 3-32. • Stein, S. (2017). The persistent challenges of addressing epistemic dominance in higher education: Considering the case of curriculum internationalization. Comparative Education Review, 61(S1), S25S50. • Stein, S., Andreotti, V., Bruce, J., & Suša, R. (2016). Towards different conversations about the internationalization of higher education. Comparative and International Education, 45(1), 2. 27