The Ethics of Internationalisation: Strangers in the House of Reason

The internationalisation of higher education gives rise to the curious entity of the global university. Promoted as the harbinger of cultural diversity, knowledge partnerships, educational exchanges, economic opportunity and ethical coexistence, it is hindered by both its quintessentially national origins, in which it remains embedded, and its national orientation to which it is wedded. Like any organisation within an institutional environment undergoing change, the global university is riddled with numerous contradictions and The Ethics of Internationalisation is a critique of the ethical elements that traverse national universities that wish to play on the international stage of higher education.

The book begins with an exploration of the relationship between internationalisation and globalisation, understanding the former as an ambivalent spin-off of the latter. It goes on to consider the constitution of ethical subjectivity through teaching and learning practices within the global university; deal with the ethics of internationalisation from the perspective of faculty, with Japan as an exemplary - albeit not unique - case; advocate an ethical form of internationalisation that proffers a critique of globalisation at the same time; and reimagine the university as an idea without any reason for its ground other than as an institution at arm’s length from society that allows it to be a mirror of its lacunae, which makes it a counter-space that is within society but not a part of it, or a heterotopia. On a closing note, the book reflects upon the critical role of the outsider - students, but especially faculty - in the process of internationalisation.

Bregham Dalgliesh has worked in Canadian, Scottish, French, American and Japanese academe for more than twenty years and specialises in critical philosophy.