The affective economy of internationalisation: migrant academics in and out of Japanese higher education

Abstract

Internationalisation is a polyvalent policy discourse, saturated in conceptual and ideological ambiguity. It is an assemblage of commodification, exploitation and opportunity and is a container for multiple aspirations, anxieties, and affordances. It combines modernisation, detraditionalisation, and expansiveness, with knowledge capitalism, linguistic imperialism, and market dominance. There are notable policy shadows and silences, especially relating to the emerging subjectivities, motivations and narratives of internationalised subjects, and experiences that expose the gendered, racialised, epistemic and affective inequalities constituting academic mobility. This paper explores the affective economy and policyscape of internationalisation drawing upon interview data gathered in one private and one national university in Japan with 13 migrant academics. What emerged from our study is that internationalisation policies, processes and practices generate multiple affective engagements. Internationalising oneself can be repressive and generative, with migrant academics finding themselves both vulnerable and animated by their diverse and frequently embodied experiences.

Encounters with borders

“…(2007: 153) There exists scholarship on transnational migration patterns and the movement of scholars from/of the Global South. There are also discussions about the sociopolitical impacts of such academic migration upon the Global South, as well as impacts upon the migrants themselves as they adjust to unfamiliar academic and societal cultures in the Global North (Cantwell and Lee 2010;Hallett and Eryaman 2014;Maadad 2014;Morley et al 2019). In a study conducted amongst Non-English-Speaking Background (NESB) international academics in Australia, stresses that affected their experiences were identified (Maadad 2014).…”

Academic and teacher expatriates: Mobilities, positionalities, and subjectivities

“…This results in the early career Chinese scholars and families in her study having to continually negotiate and make sense of their unstable class position(ings) at each juncture along their mobility trajectories. Morley, Leyton and Hada's (2019) contribution is another exemplar of translocational positionality. They found that the policy discourses, processes, and practices of internationalisation led to diverse affective engagements among their academic expatriate participants who come from different ethnicities.…”

“…Morley, Leyton and Hada's () contribution is another exemplar of translocational positionality. They found that the policy discourses, processes, and practices of internationalisation led to diverse affective engagements among their academic expatriate participants who come from different ethnicities.…”

The affective assemblage of internationalisation in Japanese higher education

“…Tension existed between policy aspirations to internationalise and micropolitical resistance to linguistic imperialism (Morley et al 2019 ). Gottlieb ( 2005 : 75) also describes a ‘tension between two arms of internationalisation policy—teaching English and promoting the spread of Japanese’.…”

“…An assemblage is a multiplicity of interacting forces and components involving fluidity, exchangeability and multiple functionalities (Deleuze and Guattari 2008;Nail 2017). The assemblage of internationalisation can include an underbelly or shadow relating to market values, male, colonial and ethnic dominance, commodification and disposability of academic labour, linguistic imperialism and knowledge capitalism (Morley et al 2018(Morley et al , 2019. Unsticking oneself, or becoming a fluid subject, can produce affective assemblages relating to belonging, inclusion/exclusion and difference.…”