Global Horizons Research Articles

Global Horizons: Assessing the Impact of Study Abroad Programs on Intercultural Competence Development Pre-College Technology Students

Across fields, college and university graduates are increasingly expected to perform effectively in diverse, multi-cultural work environments. Given this reality, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are actively designing strategies to help students develop intercultural skills. Prior research has revealed that deliberately structured study abroad programs are an effective approach to nurturing intercultural competence among graduates. Consciously designed study abroad programs can provide students with opportunities to learn and reflect on their experiences. In this study, we aim to understand the impact of a study abroad program on pre-freshmen students enrolled in a College of Technology. Using a mixed-methods design, we examined the intercultural learning gains and experiences of the participating students. The results of the study showed that studying abroad contributed significantly to the intercultural development of the students. Additionally, the study characterized the challenges faced by the students and the valuable insights they gained while interacting with people from different cultures. In summary, our findings confirmed that study abroad programs can serve as a gateway for students by equipping them with the practical skills and strategies needed to navigate the complexities of cross-cultural interactions.

Navigating global horizons: a review of export promotion and foreign market entry strategies for small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

PurposeThis study aims to conduct a systematic review of the existing literature on export promotion and foreign market entry strategies for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approachThis study incorporates systematic literature review by using bibliometric technique and content analysis of 195 scholarly papers published between 2000 and 2024 obtained from Scopus database, using the PRISMA principles and a methodological framework.FindingsThe use of quantitative analysis has shown dynamic patterns in publication trends, characterized by notable increases in recent years. These trends align with the changing dynamics of the global economy and shifting priorities in international commerce. The study reveals thematic frameworks using author collaboration analysis, word cloud visualizations and a thematic map, providing insights into a significant motor, niche and developing issues that shape the discussion on the international growth of SMEs.Research limitations/implicationsIt offers significant insights that can benefit academics, policymakers and practitioners who are interested in understanding and navigating the intricate terrain of export promotion and market access strategies specifically tailored for small firms.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first of a kind that presents a systematic examination of the existing body of knowledge on the internationalization of SMEs.

Implementation Of Multiliteration Pedagogy in Education: A Socio-Cultural Perspective

This article explains the concept and benefits of multiliteracy in education and the challenges and strategies associated with implementing multiliteracy in education. Multiliteracy is an approach that accommodates different forms of literacy, such as language, text, media, and culture. Using a systematic literature review, this research aims to investigate the implementation of multiliteracy pedagogy in educational contexts from a sociocultural perspective. The literature search will be conducted in several databases, including Scopus, ERIC, and Google Scholar. The study results show that multiliteracies can benefit students by increasing awareness and appreciation of cultural diversity, expanding global horizons, and fostering intercultural communication and collaboration. However, multiliteracies also pose challenges, such as considering socio-cultural influences on learning, integrating varied texts and media, and addressing intercultural gaps and conflicts. This article provides insights into the concept and benefits of multiliteracies in education and the challenges and strategies associated with implementing multiliteracies in education. It also suggests further research on the impact and implications of multiliteracies in education.

African Gowns and Turkish Buttons: Global Horizons of Material Expertise in a German Town

Abstract This article enquires into how townspeople in early modern Germany invested objects of foreign origin with meaning in the context of urban material culture. The basis of the argument are two interconnected case studies from Ulm in south-west Germany. The first part analyses how the seventeenth-century merchant Christoph Weickmann made sense of African artefacts which he displayed to visitors in his cabinet of curiosities, showing that his appreciation of them was closely linked to contemporary urban notions, regimes and practices of sartorial distinction. The second part zooms in on another object from Weickmann’s collection, a prayer chain with ‘Turkish’ buttons, the actual origin of which he kept secret. The biography of this object can, however, be reconstructed from the surviving narrative of its maker, Hans Ulrich Krafft, a patrician from Ulm who learned the craft of button-making and besides excelled at repairing mechanical clocks during his captivity in Tripoli in the 1570s. In his narrative, Krafft boasted about his skills as an artisan, but the manuscript was kept in the family. Nor did Weickmann, who later acquired some of the buttons made by Krafft, disclose their story, which would not have befitted a member of the patriciate. The two case studies thus demonstrate how the ‘foreignness’ of such artefacts was just one of several layers of meaning and value that were produced by the local urban community in interaction with the material qualities of the objects.

Insularity and Musical Horizons in Madagascar. Local Networks, Global Connection and Vice Versa

Abstract In Madagascar, musical genres that were previously exclusively regional have been broadcast nationwide for a few years. One of the notable changes concerning representations lies in the transition from identity referents linked to regional and/or ethnic affiliations to referents (assigned by the capital’s media) belonging to a globalizing register: mafana music (“hot music”). Artists, taken in this category, have migrated to the capital and are building new musical forms combining regional or ethnic repertoires and international modern forms, in particular by affirming and claiming a Black belonging through borrowings from modern African and North American musical genres. The article will focus on reflecting on globalization as a horizon. An alarming economic reality, an unequal social order, strong relations of domination and dependence at the local, national and global levels, are realities that strongly mark Madagascar. However, we will see how the actors of the music studied come in part and in their own way to challenge this context by an original local/global articulation. From the so-called mafana music we will see how local music genres were formed and have built meaning by connecting to global horizons. Carried in part by young women from dominated regions and marginalized communities and who have become stars, this phenomenon refers to multiple imaginaries. It is among other things to be understood in a context of inter-ethnic relations at the national level, inherited from the colonial system and mobilizing stereotyped representations between merina (historically dominant ethnic group, of the capital) and coastal, through oppositions “white” / “black”, “Asian type” / “African type”, “civilized” / “savage”, unbridled /measured sexuality... The article will focus on analyzing the processes of positive reappropriation of these stereotypes (transition from the status of black women / coastal mainty to that of national black stars) and the articulation of the phenomenon to new regional (Indian Ocean) and international (France) mobilities through community networks that are set up via the diaspora and the internet (Youtube, Facebook). At the heart of identity reformulations, these musics shake up categories and the established order. Taken in emerging markets, deploying through new networks and circulations from below, they are at the center of contemporary mutations where insularity and expanded horizons are entangled.

Global Virtual Immersion in a Post-Covid World: Lessons Learned in Moving from Sympathy to Informed Empathy in Subsistence Marketplaces

ABSTRACT We describe lessons learned from one-and-a-half decades of global virtual immersion practices in subsistence marketplaces, and explore implications for international business teaching and learning in the post-pandemic world. Global virtual immersion refers to bottom-up learning experiences, typically in contexts much different than what we may be familiar with, without being physically present in a specific geographic location. “Bottom-up” learning connotes learning from actual ground-level reality rather than the opposite, “top-down” reliance on prior knowledge. The aim of global virtual immersion is to move learners from sympathy – a most natural human emotion in response to poverty and suffering, to informed empathy, developing an understanding of subsistence marketplaces in different countries through a variety of means. Students, thus, broaden their global horizons, paving the way for additional learning and perhaps actual immersion, where possible. This process is particularly relevant as global contexts are so diverse and often elude generalities, and more so at lower income levels. This “bottom-up” approach for understanding subsistence marketplaces enables a better appreciation of the environmental realities, social contexts, market-level exchange systems, and individual behaviors of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs, providing a particularly important learning approach for international business education across geographically diverse settings.

Choosing Collaborative Learning Options for Preparing Innovative Entrepreneurs

This paper focuses on comparing and choosing online and face-to-face collaborative learning applications for preparing students to innovative entrepreneurship. The main research question is: What are the pluses and minuses of programs with different time frames and combinations of online and face-to-face teamwork for facilitating innovative entrepreneurship and international scaling readiness? Learning concepts based on collaborative learning and improving the international networking readiness of students are presented. Estonian-Finnish business in virtual networks course, online teamwork experience of students that have participated in X-Culture global teams, intensive one semester face-to-face business development projects in the Starter programme and one-week course European and Global Horizons for Start-up Entrepreneurship in the Post-COVID World at the KEDGE Business School are compared. We analyse the pros and cons of these educational practices and give recommendations on how to customise these practices to intended learning outcomes depending on the international mobility possibilities of students. The paper explains how to align collaborative learning options to the entrepreneurial orientations of students, their readiness to launch a new venture and to international scalability potential of their innovative ideas. Limitations of intensive learning by doing programmes for team-based venture development and different ways of international student team creation for collaborative project work are explained. The recent COVID-19 crisis has expanded the need to apply online learning and hybrid learning for collaborative projects. Implications of limited international mobility of students during the pandemic on scalable business idea development are highlighted. The importance of networking knowledge for international entrepreneurship and the role of team projects for other entrepreneurs before starting students' own innovative ventures is explained. Learning in higher education should not be locked to closed e-learning platforms. Online learning can support international entrepreneurial collaboration. The paper also discusses changing trends of collaborative learning to facilitate innovation and green entrepreneurship for regenerative futures in the new normality during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Knowledge and Power: Social Science and the Social World

The world’s centre of gravity is changing, from the North Atlantic to Eastern Asia. As world centres of knowledge have correlated historically with world centres of power, this ongoing geopolitical change is likely to bring changes also to the global map of cognition. Knowledge and power are intrinsically related, knowledge is power, it is based on power, and it produces instruments of power. Moreover, the vistas of social scientists and scholars are always circumscribed by the power relations of the social world they are studying. A way of looking into this is to analyse the concepts and the narratives they use and produce. What features do they highlight, and what do they hide? Cognitive change is driven by two kinds of change, change (i.e. new discovery) of evidence, and change of power. On a macro scale, the major forces of power change bearing upon cognitive change have been social mobilizations, for example, of classes, women, and ethnic groups, the rise and decline of states, and, third, economic or ecological crises disrupting the functioning of existing powers. Indigenization and de-Westernization are different programmes. The former is synonymous with nativization and rooting in the particular culture of a population, whereas the latter may be, and often is, an emancipation from Western cultural domination in the name of another universalistic culture. De-Westernization is inherently confrontational, whereas indigenization may range from supplementary to isolationist. Academic indigenization and de-Westernization have in their cognitive challenges similarities with contemporary critical identity movements, such as feminism and ethnic movements. The cognitive challenges mounted by both types of currents proceed across four levels of cognitive depths, claiming canon inclusion of certain thinkers and role models, questioning and rejection of prevailing social narratives, practising new forms of knowledge production, and fourth epistemological or meta-sociological reflections on the old and the new knowledge paradigms. Indigenization should be treated as a limited supplementary project, whereas de-Westernization is likely to advance. It should be an opening of global horizons, not a closure. Pluralism of critique, challenge, and search for other, better ways are decisive for the development of knowledge.

Global Horizons of the Atlantic Alliance: the Biden “Vaccine”

The article examines the conceptual issues of the transatlantic relations under the American administration in 2021 and the renewal of the NATO strategy. The NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, 2021, which was attended by US President Joe Biden, was initially seen as a US “coming back” to Europe after a turbulent “trumpism” period in transatlantic relations. The summit communiqué defines the main lines of the alliance transformation in response to the growing challenges to Euro-Atlantic security, considering the main ones incoming from Russia and China, while also imposed by international terrorism. The analysis of the Summit decisions and the follow-up of Joe Biden's European meetings proves the alliance globalization trend, both in geopolitical and functional terms. The summit, while having adopted the NATO 2030 Agenda, decided to adopt a new strategic concept at the next meeting in Spain in 2022. The author argues that the unresolved transatlantic problems and the allies’ disagreements internally challenge the alliance “global” strategy. The “trusted leadership” the Biden administration sets against the “Trump Doctrine” undermines the allies’ ability to step up the European strategic autonomy project, including in relations with Russia and China, as well as in after-Brexit Euro-Atlantic rebalancing.

Knowledge and power: Social science and the social world

The world’s centre of gravity is changing, from the North Atlantic to Eastern Asia. As world centres of knowledge have correlated historically with world centres of power, this ongoing geopolitical change is likely to bring changes also to the global map of cognition. Knowledge and power are intrinsically related, knowledge is power, it is based on power, and it produces instruments of power. Moreover, the vistas of social scientists and scholars are always circumscribed by the power relations of the social world they are studying. A way of looking into this is to analyse the concepts and the narratives they use and produce. What features do they highlight, and what do they hide? Cognitive change is driven by two kinds of change, change (i.e. new discovery) of evidence, and change of power. On a macro scale, the major forces of power change bearing upon cognitive change have been social mobilizations, for example, of classes, women, and ethnic groups, the rise and decline of states, and, third, economic or ecological crises disrupting the functioning of existing powers. Indigenization and de-Westernization are different programmes. The former is synonymous with nativization and rooting in the particular culture of a population, whereas the latter may be, and often is, an emancipation from Western cultural domination in the name of another universalistic culture. De-Westernization is inherently confrontational, whereas indigenization may range from supplementary to isolationist. Academic indigenization and de-Westernization have in their cognitive challenges similarities with contemporary critical identity movements, such as feminism and ethnic movements. The cognitive challenges mounted by both types of currents proceed across four levels of cognitive depths, claiming canon inclusion of certain thinkers and role models, questioning and rejection of prevailing social narratives, practising new forms of knowledge production, and fourth epistemological or meta-sociological reflections on the old and the new knowledge paradigms. Indigenization should be treated as a limited supplementary project, whereas de-Westernization is likely to advance. It should be an opening of global horizons, not a closure. Pluralism of critique, challenge, and search for other, better ways are decisive for the development of knowledge.

Debt bondage in human trafficking: US agriculture and Thailand fisheries primed for labour exploitation

There is a need for a transnational framework that would redefine labour trafficking in terms of debt bondage and challenge the privileges of legal contracts at the expense of migrant workers’ human and labour rights. We argue that anti-trafficking legislation in the US and Thailand is expansive in definition, but its application is too restrictive to deliver justice to the victims. The debt-labour industry easily becomes a form of transnational labour trafficking. We examine Thailand as an origin and destination country for labour trafficking through two cases involving the US and Thailand though a Marxist and liberal analysis that considers critical race theory. The limitations in which these cases could not achieve full justice represent the challenges for transnational labour rights for noncitizen migrant workers. We examine the Global Horizons agricultural labour case, 2002–2012, and Thailand’s fishing sector, which led to its Tier 3 ranking in the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report. This report was used in international campaigns to pressurise corporate industries and retailers to change their code of conduct, necessitating considerations of the effectiveness of supply chain responsibility.

Preface. The IV International Scientific and Technical Conference “Gas Hydrate Technologies: Global Trends, Challenges and Horizons” (GHT 2020)

Preface. The IV International Scientific and Technical Conference “Gas Hydrate Technologies: Global Trends, Challenges and Horizons” (GHT 2020)

Moving global horizons: Imagining selfhood, mobility and futurities through creative practice in ethnographic research

This article explores imagined selfhood, mobility and futurities through creative practice in ethnography. Globalisation allows people with varying socio-economic and geographical backgrounds to imagine themselves with more possibilities. How can creative practice such as improvisation in ethnofictions, storytelling and participatory animation be applied in ethnographic research to explore the imaginary realm of selfhood and expectations on being elsewhere? Drawing on fieldwork on migration from Africa to Europe, Brazilian transgender mobility and British youth in environmental transformation, the article will show how existential immobility inspires production of global horizons through imagination.

Global Lines in Conflicts in the Middle East

My case is that current conflicts in the Middle East are not only conflicts between states or a Clash of Civilizations, but that glocal relative deprivation has caused a vacuum of power and conflicts between stationary states. To support my argument, I will discuss three paradigms and their ability for explaining the crisis in the Middle East: First, Carl Schmitt’s turn from Westphalian Governance to global lines (of a Nomos of Earth) as spheres of foreign non-interference, which is either used to propose unrealistic international solutions to a transnational crisis or, paradoxically, to back hegemonic interests in the region. Second, I will deconstruct Samuel Huntington’s paradigm of a Clash of Civilizations, which is based on dubious data and references to call for a Western hegemony that already exists beyond the classical imperialist understanding of it as global standards empowered with help of global horizons of comparability. Third, I will extend Hans-Ulrich Wehler’s sketch of reasons for modernization crisis in nation-states that is based on relative deprivation, identity-, participation-, distribution-, penetration-, and (culminating in a) legitimation-crisis, for analyzing conflicts in the Middle East as caused by glocal comparison and competition in world society. In summing, I intend to analyze the unrest in the Middle East as caused by glocal relative deprivation. This perspective enables us to deal with glocal political and social processes rather as represented than caused by global cultural or political conflicts between “civilizations” or states.

The human right to health: exploring disability, migration and health

Across the globe, an estimated one billion people are on the move today, of whom 244 million are international migrants. Not only have global horizons expanded in the realm of work and study; global conflict and exploitation have resulted in forced migration. Migration is a political issue, which raises questions of identity, citizenship, diversity and integration and is utilised to play upon the fear of the stranger, the ‘Other’ and difference in contemporary society. Disabled migrants are a hidden population whose experiences are often overlooked or subsumed within wider debates around disability and ethnicity. This article considers the intersection of disability and migration in contemporary society through the lens of healthcare access. Reflecting on the impact of citizenship rights on the realisation of human rights in the context of contemporary migration, using health as an example, the article considers the implications for disabled migrants, focusing primarily on the European Union.

Educated to be global: Transnational horizons of middle class students in Kerala, India

The growing young middle class in India is often portrayed as encompassing a ‘global sensitivity’. International mobility is one strategy for middle class families to gain a positional advantage on a competitive labour market. Negotiating place attachment and global horizons may create a range of possibilities often attached to discourses of individualization and self-realization. This paper analyses young people’s dispositions towards mobility in the transition from education to work by drawing on Bourdieu’s central concepts of symbolic capital and habitus. Interviews with students in higher secondary school in Kerala’s state capital Thiruvananthapuram, southwest India, covered broad themes like future expectations, skills and knowledge, everyday whereabouts and family life which were discussed in relation to a perceived activity space. I argue that young people’s future aspirations are shaped in a profound way by the history of Kerala’s in and out migration, and draw attention to differences within the middle class where transnational capital distinguishes rather than unifies ‘Indian youth’. Furthermore, this paper unpacks the complex, variegated images of different cities, countries and regions as symbols of cultural or economic capital in Malayali students’ expectations of their future education and employment.

Global Horizons: Mexico, the Third World, and the Non-Aligned Movement at the Time of the 1961 Belgrade Conference

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the autonomous streak that marked Mexico's foreign policy during the presidency of Adolfo López Mateos (1958–64). Throughout this period, Mexico showed reluctance to participate fully in the flagship Kennedy programme for Latin America, the Alliance for Progress. At the same time, the López Mateos government adopted a position of defence for Cuba's right to self-determination in spite of Washington's attempts to eradicate the Cuban Revolution from the Western Hemisphere. During López Mateos's term, Mexico tried for the first time in its history to elaborate a foreign policy with broader international outreach, an effort highlighted by the Mexican presidential trips to Latin America and Asia as well as other countries that belonged to the Non-Aligned Movement. While historiography has explored Mexico's attitude towards the Alliance for Progress and, more consistently, the country's Cuban policy, much less attention has been dedicated to López Mateos's engagement with the Non-Aligned Movement. Focusing on Mexico's failed participation at the First Conference of Heads of State of Non-Aligned Countries celebrated in Belgrade in 1961, this article aims to fill this research gap. Indeed, even if Mexico did not ultimately participate in the conference, Mexican diplomacy did show great interest in the gathering. For a country that had formally sided with the United States after the beginning of the cold war, Mexico's flirtation with the Non-Aligned Movement represented a detour from the diplomatic path it had adopted at the end of the Second World War. This work argues that Mexico's engagement with the Non-Aligned Movement presents a different dimension of the country's international strategy during the 1960s, reflecting Mexico's desire to loosen the bipolar constraints that limited its economic development and increase its leverage with Washington.

Acceptability of a modular, community-informed disaster risk reduction training programme in Delmas, Haiti

<h2>Abstract</h2><h3>Background</h3> Haiti experienced an Earthquake that killed 230 000 and injured 300 000 people. National disaster plans were developed; however, little is known about how to translate national policies to the community. The aim of this study was to examine the acceptability of a modular Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) curriculum implemented with community leaders. <h3>Methods</h3> In 2012, a disaster preparedness community assessment (N=144 households) and key informant interviews were held. In 2013, DRR activities were piloted and outcomes informed curriculum development, which consisted of three content domains: definition of hazards, risks, and vulnerabilities; identification of protective factors and community assets; and development of community engagement strategies to assess, mitigate, and manage environmental threats. Participants were identified during the pilot study as those interested in taking a leadership role. A pre-test and post-test research design was used to assess knowledge acquisition, and questionnaires were administered to determine acceptability of methods. <h3>Findings</h3> Participants (n=16) showed improved ability in defining disaster terms: hazards (pre-test 0; post-test 11; 68% improvement), disaster (2; 10; 50%), vulnerability (7; 14; 44%), and risk (8; 12; 25%). 81·25% of participants correctly identified community assets; 100% proposed strategies for engaging others in DRR activities. Participants found the training acceptable and beneficial: 93·75% enjoyed training activities; 100% found the topics relevant and useful; and 81·25% felt comfortable sharing activities with others. <h3>Interpretation</h3> Community-based activities are acceptable methods for developing local capacity to mitigate risk to future hazards and disasters. A modular format supports the ability of the curriculum to be adapted and applied in other communities in Haiti. <h3>Funding</h3> The Douglass Passaro Global Horizons Scholarship.

Introduction: Global Horizons and Local Interests in the Era of the Constitution of Cadiz

Introduction: Global Horizons and Local Interests in the Era of the Constitution of Cadiz

Forging the heteroglossic citizen: articulating local, national, regional and global horizons in the Australian Curriculum

This article offers a discourse analysis comparing selected articles in the national press over the consultative period for Phase 1 subjects in the new Australian Curriculum, with rationales prefacing official Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority documents. It traces how various versions of Australia, its ‘nation-ness’ and its future citizens have been taken up in the final product. The analysis uses Lemke's analytic elaboration of Bakhtin's concept of heteroglossia and its derivative, intertextuality. It identifies a range of intertextual thematic formations around ‘nation’, ‘history’, ‘citizen’ and ‘curriculum’ circulating in the public debates, then traces their presence in official curriculum documents. Rather than concluding that these themes are contradictory and incoherent, the conclusion asks how these multiple dialogic facets of Australian nation-ness potentially offer a better response to complex times than any coherent monologic orthodoxy might.