Internationalisation is often presented or assumed to be inclusive by default. In welcoming different forms and sources of knowledge into our curricula, our classrooms, our laboratories and knowledge structures, Discourses of internationalisation make symbolic appeals that invoke inclusivity. Yet in many ways, the practice and policy of internationalization fall short of its symbolic promise. Coloniality, neoliberalism, and vestigial white supremacy compromise the capabilities of internationalisation to be inclusive. Student mobility for example is fraught with inequalities, from the economic to the social. Access to prestigious forms of knowledge creation such as funding for research and access to publication opportunities remains compromised by racism, sexism, and elitism. In this context, micro-practices matter. When lecturers comment on student essays that the source they chose was weak and that they should have chosen one by a more established author, they reinforce existing hierarchies of epistemology. When pedagogic assumptions about students centeredness lead to classroom debate in which first-language speakers and white cisgender men dominate the conversation, they reinforce existing hierarchies of power. When reading lists are decolonized by including a week of material from the global South, these forms of knowledge continue to be marginalized. For internationalization not to be reduced to a set of multicoloured faces on promotion brochures or a talking point for institutional self-promotion, to be a meaningful and ethical epistemic exercise, it has to be inclusive. To me, inclusivity means reflecting not only on the macro structures that we inhabit and that generate ethical compromise for us on a daily basis but on how our micro practice is to reinforce or challenge those macro structures and create space for a better version of inclusive internationalisation to emerge.
The Keynote Lecture is part of the program of the First Annual Elkana Symposium on Reimagining Teaching and Learning.
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Bio
Sylvie Lomer is Lecturer in Policy and Practice and programme director for the MA Education (International) at the University of Manchester. She teaches primarily on the MA Education (International), with a specialisation in policy and higher education studies. She is currently developing a new module on International Higher Education, adopting a comparative approach to understanding developments in global higher education. Her research focuses on policies on international students in the UK. It adopts a critical approach, focusing on public policy discourses to examine how international students are represented. Future directions for research include how institutions and individuals interact with, respond to and resist such representations.