Australian Universities’ Review - International Higher Education - Living with the Other: higher education in the global era

Oct 15, 2026

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Explores how Australian higher education should live with alterity in an era shaped by globalisation. Challenges the neo-liberal view of globalisation as a world market, proposing broader definitions grounded in technological, cultural and political networks. Describes how global relationships reshape daily academic life through mobility, communications, agreements and knowledge flows. Warns against global convergence that could impose an idealised American model, while arguing global encounters can strengthen Australian identity through multicultural engagement and alternative model-building.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

Living with the Other: higher education in the global era

Rethinking globalisation beyond markets

Defining the global vs the international

Globalisation in daily academic life

Cultural diversity and identity

Risks of global convergence

The articles: GATS and the national state

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Feature: International Higher Education Living with the Other: higher education in the global era SIMON MARGINSON Monash Centre for Research in International Education The question is no longer how to get rid of strangers and the strange once and for all, or declare human variety but a momentary inconvenience, but how to live withalterity – daily and permanently. Zygmunt Bauman 1997, p. 30 To understand ‘globalisation’ simply as the world market is to adopt the neo-liberal doctrine that all human identities and relationships should be understood in the terms of a capitalist economy. It is to rule out any other kind of world, any other markers of identity, any other kind of international relationship. This suggests that a broader and less pejorative definition of ‘globalisation’ is needed, so as to open us to the fuller range of relationships made possible by electronic networking, travel-based encounters and cultural hybridity. An alternative approach is to define the ‘global’ in geospatial terms rather than in terms of particular economic values. In geo-spatial terms, the term ‘global’ should be distinguished from ‘international’. ‘International’ refers to relations between nations (inter-national) . ‘Global’ refers to systems and relationships that are practised beyond the local and national dimension, at continental, meta-nation regional and world levels. These global relationships are technological, cultural and political as well as economic; and are expressed in flows of ideas, images and people, as well as flows of money and goods (Appadurai 1996; Held et al. 1999) . In this sense ‘globalisation’ simply means‘becoming global’. ‘Global’ relationships as such are not new. Universities in the European-Anglo-American tradition have long been part of larger global networks, for example in the academic disciplines. Now, however, the ‘global’ dimension has unprecedented presence in daily academic life. Universities are part of world markets in international education and intellectual property. Global technologies enable instant data transfer, and have structured a much larger set of international collaborations. Cross-border staff and student movement is expanding. International trade agreements have the potential to reset national education policy and provision. In Australia the ‘global’ dimension of higher education is now omnipresent (except for those who work hard to remain disengaged) . E-mails, flights, agreements, cross-national teams, international students and colleagues: all are burgeoning. Some experiences of ‘globalisation’ are more profound than others. Most internet communication is in English. The largest part of the travelling is to America and Britain, and Western Europe, and some travelling to East Asia remains effectively confined to sealed-off English language environments. In this context international work is a bit too easy, especially for Anglo-Euro-Australians. On the other hand, more transformative encounters also take place, in which our own identities are open to change.‘Globalisation’ starts to take in cultural diversity. We begin to see the world through the eyes of others. If there is a danger for Australian higher education in the global environment, it does not lie in the malleability of identity. Global encounters do not in themselves undermine the capacity to sustain identity, unless that identity is fragile from the start. In fact the global environment offers richer resources with which to make and remake the identity of Australian higher education; enabling us to transcend the old oscillation between Britain and the USA. In conjunction with the multi-culturalism of Australia itself,‘globalisation’ provides new opportunities to bring a distinctive Australian contribution to the world. The danger rather is global convergence: that the contents of the media and systems of ‘globalisation’, includingthe models of

FAQs

Why does the document argue that globalisation should not be reduced to the world market?

It says that equating globalisation with a capitalist economy doctrine excludes other identities and relationship markers, limiting the possible range of international interactions.

How does it differentiate “global” from “international”?

“International” is described as relations between nations, while “global” refers to systems and relationships practiced beyond local and national dimensions, at continental, meta-nation regional and world levels.

What danger does the document identify for Australian higher education in global conditions?

It warns against global convergence, where media and benchmarking models push countries toward common patterns, making an idealised American university model the only feasible template.

Oct 15, 2026

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