Governmental assemblages of internationalising universities: Mediating circulation and containment in East Asia

Abstract

This paper critically appraises the internationalization practices currently embraced by some of East Asia’s leading universities. We examine the ‘governmental assemblage’ that constitutes the ‘international university’ with a particular focus on the ways in which this transformation has involved an increased circulation of international students. Mobile students are caught up in the desires of universities and national governments to craft ‘world-class universities’, cosmopolitanise campus spaces, achieve demographic renewal and harness the human capital of international graduates by implementing policies of internationalisation. Analyses of practices on-the-ground reveal that formulations to capture the potentialities from circulating international students rarely achieving the global teaching and learning experiences they aspire to. Instead, fragmented encounters with domestic students, ethno-cultural essentialisms and renewed tensions around the politics of language and learning, create the possibilities for container models of international education. At the same time, practices of self-government by international students can succeed in (re)working such containment logics by refusing to be seen simply as units of human capital. Our argument points to the importance of a more critical and engaged approach to internationalization in universities by policymakers and institutional leaders.