Abstract
Academic mobility, an important aspect of the internationalisation of higher education, has increased dramatically. There are many ways to conceptualise the internationalisation of higher education. One new important focus is on the internationalisation and decoloniality of the curriculum, especially in a postcolonial country like Indonesia. Scholars have advanced concerns that internationalisation results in a homogenised curriculum which strengthens the domination of Western knowledges.Many studies have analysed the harmful effects of Western knowledge domination in higher education (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Leibowitz, 2017). However, relatively little research focuses on how Western and local knowledges can be integrated through the processes of knowledge hybridisation (de Sousa Santos, 2014; Bhabha, 1999). This research aims to investigate how the concepts of the internationalisation of the curriculum at an Indonesian university are perceived and practised by leaders, academic staff, students, and academic-related staff from decolonial perspectives. It also analyses the extent of the hybridisation and ecology of knowledges in the curriculum.
Underpinned by social constructionism, this qualitative case study employed semi- structured interviews, classroom observations, and relevant documents to collect the data. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and document analysis (Bowen, 2009) were used to analyse the data. The emerging themes were critically analysed using the theories of Ecology of Knowledges (de Sousa Santos, 2014) and Knowledge Hybridity (Bhabha, 1994). The findings show that the integration of local and Western knowledges was being attempted. However, the use of Western knowledge as the main reference continued to exist. This is mainly because higher education institutions across the world, including the case study university, cannot escape the influence of neoliberalism and Western hegemony (Gyamera & Burke, 2018). And this contributes to difficulties for knowledges from non- Western countries in terms of being recognised (Mitchell et al., 2020).
This research makes an empirical contribution to a very small number of research in the intersecting fields of the internationalisation and decoloniality of the curriculum in Indonesian higher education. Theoretically, it contributes to knowledge development, especially regarding how knowledge hybridisation is attempted along with its tensions and challenges in practice.
| Date of Award | 21 Jun 2022 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Sponsors | Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) -Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia |
| Supervisor | Lisa Lucas (Supervisor) & Sue Timmis (Supervisor) |