Diasporic comparative education: an initial tribute to anxiety and hope

Abstract

ABSTRACTMany of the iconic figures in the history of comparative education were trans-national polyglot scholars. Several key thinkers and actors in the formative years of the institutionalisation of comparative education notably in London and New York were either émigré or migrant scholars (i.e. Kandel, Hans, Ulrich, Lauwerys, Bereday). There are many more transnationally- mobile academics doing comparative education these days and we do not yet have a clear Gestalt which permits us to grasp how and why they are engaged in comparative education. This article explores this general theme, not least in terms of the concept of ‘the foreign’. The article wonders about and explores the theme of a ‘diasporic comparative education’, here taken to mean the kinds of re-thinking of comparative education undertaken by those who choose to undergo the existential and intellectual stresses of ‘becoming foreign’ while they embrace the professional identity of being ‘comparative educationists’.