Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
3, 2012
doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00674.x
Marnie Hughes-Warrington
Monash University
Abstract
While the concept of internationalization plays a key role in contemporary discussions on the
activities and outcomes sought by universities, it is commonly argued that it is poorly understood
or realised in practice. This has led some to argue that more work is needed to define the
dimensions of the concept, or even to plot out stages of its achievement. This paper aims not to
provide a definition of internationalisation for those working in higher education. On the
contrary, it seeks to open up discussion on internationalisation by considering Derridas reflec-
tions on hospitality and the metaphysics of presence. In so doing, it will be shown that
internationalisation is an ethical demand that is as much about being unsettled by thinking
about ourselves and others, as it is about mobility programs and online education, and about
being late rather than surrendering to the space-time compression of modernity.
Introduction
Landd on a point forming the NW or Middle Branch to which we were
followed by several of the Natives along the rocks, having only their sticks
which they use in throwing the Lance, with them. A Man followed at some
distance with a bundle of Lances; they pointed with their sticks to the best
landing place & met us in the most chearful manner, shouting & dancing, the
Women kept at a distance near the Man with the Spears, this mark of attention
to the Women in Shewing us, that altho they met us unarmed, they had Arms
ready to protect them, increasd my favourable opinion of them very much:
Some of these people having peices of tape & other things tied about them, we
conclude them to be some of those people whom the Governor had met here
before, these people mixed with ours & all hands danced together ... (Lieu-
tenant Bradley, Sydney Cove, 28 January 1788; quoted in Clendinnen, 2005)
Internationalization looms large in contemporary discussions of the activities and out-
comes sought by universities and other higher education providers. Multiple dimensions
to internationalization are recognised, taking in student and staff mobility programs, the
recruitment and retention of international students, offshore delivery, international
research collaboration and benchmarking, the connection of student cohorts across
cultural borders through the use of technologies, learning about global phenomena and
changes, the fostering of the development of skills that will allow graduates to participate
in an international or global context and the reflexive recognition that the nature and
meaning of learning and teaching practices and understandings are context sensitive
(Knight, 2004; Stone, 2006).
This paper aims not to provide a definitive definition of internationalisation for those
working in higher education.This is not simply because of the difficulty of accounting for
rationales, benefits, outcomes, actors, activities, or stakeholders of internationalization
across institutions and the globe (Knight, 2003). On the contrary, this paper seeks to
un-close discourse on internationalisation by taking a counterpath offered by Derridas
reflections on hospitality and the metaphysics of presence. In so doing, it will be shown
that internationalisation is as much about self-presence as the bridging of distance
through mobility, international student enrolments or communication technologies, and
about being late rather than surrendering to the space-time compression of modernity.
This is done in order to illuminate the opportunities for thinking about internationali-
sation in the light of ethics, rather than simply through the lenses of definition or even
metaphysics.
like Facebook and Twitter are seen as having ushered in a significant change in the ways
in which people interact with one another, and how we might understand those
interactions.
The idea of glocalization is also evokedat least implicitlyin contemporary writings
on higher education (Meek, Teichler & Kearney, 2009) because it is thought to best
capture the role of localsub-nationalactivities, networks and dynamics in shaping
global phenomena (Appadurai, 1996; Garcia Canclini, 1995; Pieterse, 1995; Robertson,
1995; Sassen, 2003; Tomlinson, 1999). As Marmolejo and Puukka have argued, for
instance:
Switching and maneuvering among networks, people can use ties to one
network to bring resources to another. Indeed, the very fact of their ties to
other networks will be a resource, creating the possibility of linkage, trade
and cooperation. Knowing how to network (on and offline) becomes a human
capital resource, and having a supportive network becomes a social capital
resource. The cost is the loss of a palpably present and visible local group at
work and in the community that could provide social identity and a sense of
belonging. The gain is the increased diversity of opportunity, greater scope for
individual agency, and the freedom from a single groups constrictive control.
(Wellman, 2002, p. 5)
(Bonfiglio, 1999; Stensaker et al., 2008; Takagi, 2009), the overemphasis of economic
considerations or poor resourcing (Parker et al., 1999; Haigh, 2008; Harris, 2008), a lack
of appreciation of linguistic and cultural differences between staff and students (Crichton
& Scarino, 2007; Luxon & Peelo, 2009), the perception that it is demanding and will
undercut time spent on research (Healey, 2008, p. 347), lack of integration of efforts
(Wihlborg, 2009, p. 120) and the assumption that some teaching approaches are cul-
turally neutral (Schapper & Mayson, 2004). Recognising such problems, though, is seen
as a means of precipitating the shift from nascent to complex models of international-
ization (Jones & Killick, 2007), or movement through a continuum of multi domestic,
multinational, transnational and globalisation approaches, which culminate with
the recognition that internationalization is a complex, all encompassing policy-driven
process, integral to and permeating the life, culture, curriculum and instruction as well
as research activities of the university and its members (Bartell, 2003, p. 46; see also
Teichler, 2004; Kehm & Teichler, 2007).
The idea that there is a metaphysics of internationalization deserves pause. Wihlborg
has come close to such an observation in proposing an alignment between the position
of Swedish educational policy on internationalization and Hegels writings on self-
realisation. That is, advances in the realisation of internationalisation are conjoined
with the realisation of freedom. To her mind, however, the Hegelian characterisation of
self-knowledge lacks the relational emphasis needed to see internationalization in edu-
cational rather than economic terms. She therefore opts for Bubers notion of an
I-thou relationship, where the dialogue rests on the idea that those involved enter the
dialogue with their sincere whole being and presence (2009, p. 127). While Wihlborgs
reading of Hegel is problematichis is a metaphysics in which aggregating relation-
ships are the mainspring of educationher call for a relational conceptualisation of
internationalization provides a useful starting point for further analysis. This paper
engages in such an analysis by returning to a consideration of metaphysicsmore
particularly Jacques Derridas notion of a metaphysics of presenceand its dis-
jointing in the idea of hospitality. This will lead to the reconsideration of internation-
alisation as an ethical demand within and between individuals that forces us finally
and lately to think, and no longer to imagine that we are thinking (Dufourmantelle,
in Derrida, 2000, p. 32).
contexts. The meaning of individual choice in this case is very interesting. While
Derridas suggestion might be read as connoting a form of neo-liberal individualism,
considerations of his other writings on the ideas of self and other point to a view of
identities as fluid, and even porous. That is, as with concepts, the boundaries of indi-
viduals are far from stable or fixed. One the other hand, however, his location of ethics
at the level of the individual, rather than local or even global communities is open to
question, particularly when, as will become clearer below, we see the entanglement of
individuals in relations of hospitality.
The ethical demand of internationalization in higher educationas distinct from a
reiterative metaphysics of presence where technologies are automatically and repeatedly
conjured as agents of connection, acceleration, change and understanding in order to fix
or define the conceptis apparent when one considers the aporia that Derrida sees in
the idea of hospitality. As with the metaphysics of presence, hospitality is a persistent
theme in Derridas writings and the subject of explicit attention in the two lectures that
constitute Of Hospitality (2000). That attention was warranted by his view of hospitality
as shaping all human interaction and as the whole and the principle of ethics (Derrida,
1999, p. 50).
Hospitality is both a familiar and a deeply unsettling idea. Individuals and groups
routinely welcome guests and strangers out of charity and civility, and in response to
legislated duty or a moral imperative. Moreover, as with ancient and medieval practices,
hospitality may serve to validate ones social identity and reputation in public life and
thus be valued as a virtue or even used to define humanity (Manville, 1990; Bolchazy,
1977; and Heal, 1990).Yet, as Derrida notes, hospitality leads us to an aporia because it
is inconceivable and incomprehensible in an unconditional or absolute sense (Derrida,
2002, p. 362). In the case of absolute hospitality, one gives all that one has to any other
person without question, restriction or compensation: it is not bound to convention, law,
right, debt or duty (Derrida, 1999, p. 83). It is, as he puts it, unconditional but without
sovereignty (Derrida, 2001b, p. 59).
If we baulk or step back from that, then our extension of hospitality is subjected to
limitations and a reciprocal exchange of violence ensues. Inviting or giving gifts implies
reciprocation, which is the most inhospitable exchange possible (Derrida, 2002, p. 398).
Asking the guest or strangers name or speaking a particular language is also an act
of violence, because the first destination of language ... involves depriving me of, or
delivering me from, my singularity (Derrida, 1996a, p. 60). Must we, he argues, ask the
foreigner to understand us, to speak our language ... in all its possible extensions, before
being able and so as to be able to welcome him into our country? (Derrida, 2001b, p.
15). Conversely, in inviting the stranger in, the host gambles with his or her security and
sovereignty (Derrida, 1999, p. 94). Here, the host becomes the hostage of the guest and
the guest becomes the one who is master. As he explains: As soon as I speak to the other,
I submit to the law of giving reason(s), I share a virtually universalizable medium, I divide
my authority (2005, p. 101). It is the tension between the unconditional and conven-
tional and between the host and guest that keeps the idea of hospitality alive. As with the
idea of democracy, it is to come: that is, there is no fixed or final state of hospitality,
no end to its history because openness to the event is openness to alterity (Derrida,
2002, p. 41).
... a new violence is being prepared and in truth has been unleashed for some
time now, in a way that is more visibly suicidal or auto-immune than ever.This
violence no longer has to do with world war or even with war, even less with
some right to wage war. And this is hardly re-assuringindeed, quite the
contrary. (2005, p. 156)
Being more suicidal means that because there is no clear boundary between states, the
boundaries between ones state or self and others is more and more porous, and
responding to the threat of others means responding to more and more of the threat
inside, to killing more and more of oneself (2005, p. 105). Globalization and glocaliza-
tion therefore entail not just an opening up to others, but an active invitation or advance,
an un-closing, including the un-closing of the sphericity or englobing of thought
itself, and an opportunity to to think, and no longer to imagine that we are thinking
(Dufourmantelle, in Derrida, 2000, p. 32).
Our age is neither a new stage in an Hegelian metaphysical parade of instantiations of
freedom, nor does it mark the breakdown of established identities. Migration and the
destabilisation of the borders of identity have been a feature of human history for at least
two hundred thousand years, and if one restricts oneself to the history of states, around
seven thousand years. His analysis is useful, though, in prompting us to un-close
internationalisation in higher education.What is missing in contemporary scholarship on
internationalisation in higher education is an analysis of why mobility exchanges con-
tinue to be so popular in an age of globalisation and mass tourism. After all, it might be
argued that they are not so different from tours in which the local sites and products
encounteredclassroom and research experiences, co-curricula activities and support
servicesare reflections of global transfers. Moreover, those sites and products might
be eviscerated, with opportunities for misunderstanding and even offence minimised or
even removed. As with the local High Street or airport terminal in which one expects to
see a McDonalds, exchange might see the student or staff member working in globalised
learning or research spaces, with globalised technologies and with either the language of
a managed othera teacher who works to minimise local accent or vocabulary in order
to be understoodor even his or her own language.
It is possible to argue that the continuing popularity of state-to-state and institution-
to-institution exchanges arises from a desire to fixrather than to destabiliseidentities.
That is, in mobility exchange, both the student and the host institution conjure and fix
the indigenous as one might in the production of a local craft product or a local mean
prepared according to a traditional recipe. Moreover, even more pointedly, it might be
asked whether these figurations of identity serve to repress or to displace those dimen-
sions of community at home, in the world and of ourselves that we wish not to
encounter. Derridas writings emphasise the ways in which the host extends conditional
hospitality to the guest. But it is also worth noting that the guest is also a host back
home, and that not being present to guests at home is in itself an exercise of conditional
hospitality. Put simply, not being at home to extend hospitality might also be thought
of as an act of violence. Thinking this through suggests that both mobility and interna-
tionalisation might be reconfigured to accommodate and even conjoin learning experi-
ences and encounters with individuals and groups that are other both at home and in
the world. After all, the global is written in local acts that see individuals and groups
marginalised, silenced and despised. The unconditional ethical demand of internation-
alisation arises from a glocal awareness of the historical contingency of our contexts, and
an awareness of opportunities for justice, whether those contexts are near or far. Inter-
nationalisation is global and glocal. But is it also narcissistic, as Derrida explains: one
wants to live as much as possible, to save oneself, to persevere, and to cultivate all those
things which, though infinitely greater and more powerful than oneself nonetheless form
a part of this little me that they exceed on all sides (2007, p. 30). Internationalisation
means being present and open to oneself, as well as to others.
Derridas writings remind us to question the logic in which physical distanceand
indeed money for travelis seen as necessary for encounters with others. Difference
resides as much within the self and with others around us as within the other in another
country. Moreover they provide us with the opportunity to rethink the association of
internationalisation with space-time compression. In one way, the use of communication
technologies in higher education does make it possible to collapse space and time.
Students from different parts of the world are able to interact and exchange ideas in ways
today that could not have been foreseen even five years ago. But seen in another way,
internationalisation is also a form of being late. Every act of internationalisation takes
place in the present, and is different from every other act of internationalisation that
Ior othershave undertaken. But every expression of internationalisation is also to
some extent shaped by past expressions of internationalisation, and those expressions
lead us to anticipate the repetition of particular outcomes.Thus there is no experience of
internationalisation that is not at the same time singular and repeated. Repeatability
bears the trace not only of what has happenedand we seem late for it because it has
already disappearedbut also the possibility of what is about to come and what is not as
yet present. Every experience of internationalisation is thus never quite on time: time is
anachronism, or as Derrida quotes Hamlet out of joint in the sense that time is unjust
or violent (2000, p. 20). We, like Hamlet, are compelled to respond to the actions of
others, but since these acts continually question and violate our sense of the world, time
is out of joint. To respond to those actions, and to act for ourselves, we must continue to
allow ourselves and others to be other than we are. Not doing so sees us paralysed, or
playing out repetitions of action where we do not think.
Internationalisation is a way of learning to live with ghosts, an ethical obligation to be
open to the ways in which past, present and future others haunt us and disturb our sense
of the world, an unconditional obligation towards the unforeseeable. Fixing a definition
of internationalisation, of cataloguing its components or locations means not allowing
the unknownincluding gueststo be welcomed, or least places conditions upon them
and ourselves. It violates hospitality and turns us from ethics to repetition. We, like
Hamlet, can never know the peace of a good ending like that supplied in the 1788 diary
entry by Bradley (in Clendinnen, 2005, p. 29). Rather, it is in the moments before
dancingwhen we face others and are disturbed by what we seethat we learn not only
to think and to welcome, but also to live (Derrida, 1993, xvi).
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