Academic migration and reshaping of pedagogy and epistemology: An insider-outsider perspective

Abstract

This chapter highlights major contemporary migration features in the context of globalization that have created new cultures in cosmopolitan societies today, characterized by multiculturalism, pluralism, inclusivity, and dynamic and continuous change of cultural elements in society. The new migration features brought about by globalization have changed the migrant patterns of societies and will have significant impact on migrants and both the sending and receiving societies. To highlight a few, long term migrants have been replaced largely by short term migrations; migration destinations have in many cases become mid-way stops rather than irreversible destinations. As a result, the old concepts of brain drain have been increasingly replaced by brain circulation, signifying that an age of back and forth flow of talents is emerging, replacing the old days with irretrievable talent outflows. In addition, internationalization has become a common agenda across the world, with cities competing for gaining talents in the brain circulation orbits. This has also affected the discourse agenda in universities in particular, with discussion gradually shifting from economic gains in internationalization to the development of new epistemologies that reflect a diversity of cultures. In the context of this migration shift, this paper delineates the author's personal experience, as an educational expatriate in the academic diaspora, in the different localities of his workplace, namely Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. The chapter both reports on and analyzes his observation of the above-mentioned changes from the perspective of an insider-outsider participant observer.