The Irrelevance of the Re-Configured Definition of Internationalisation to the Global South:

Abstract

This article argues that the definition of internationalisation as recast by deWit, Hunter, Howard, and Egron-Polak (2015), which embraced ‘intentionality’as its key component, is of no relevance to the reality of the GlobalSouth. It maintains that contemporary ontological manifestations of theterminology have been appreciably misrepresented, if not wholly distorted,mainly by a passionate, albeit sincere, desire to advance certain ‘good’intentions, while disregarding others, in the process creating a dissonancebetween epistemological reality and a paradigmatic trajectory. In his latestargument, de Wit maintained that the definition is “normative and descriptive”,but Teferra countered that it is neither normative nor descriptive butrather prescriptive and coercive. This article argues that this definitionrequires acceptance of an articulated ‘good’ intention as fundamental tointernationalisation. Intentions are as broad and dynamic as they are subtleand complex. Even ‘good’ intentions are subjective and are presumedworthy by a certain sector of society (scholarly or otherwise) for a certainperiod of time and to a certain extent. Thus, the definition of internationalisation,as it stands, does not concur with these basic tenets of intentions,rendering it somewhat irrelevant to most of the Global South, and quite anumber of instances in the Global North.