Presentation at the Global Knowledge Economy Seminar organised by the Postgraduate Students’ Association held at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, on 15 October 2018
My topic today was New Zealand’s fourth largest export industry in 2016, then valued at more than $4 billion dollars, and supported more than 30 thousand jobs across the country. International education is big business for New Zealand, as it is for the traditional players – the English-speaking nations of the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.
The recent International Education Strategy released by the Ministry of Education has declared is aspirations for international education to be the vehicle for global citizenship. But I do wonder whether the forces of global currency overwhelm such lofty, but certainly important goals.
First, let’s think about why international students come to New Zealand. While the perceived high quality of educational offerings is one factor, research suggests that the stronger factors are:
that New Zealand is overall a more affordable destination, and
New Zealand’s reputation as clean, green, and safe.
Next, let’s consider what international education contributes to New Zealand. As I mentioned earlier, international education is an export sector, meaning, education is treated as a form of goods and services.
Looking at the 2016 stats, there were about 130 thousand international students enrolled in schools, language centres, private institutions, the polytechnics, and universities.
Half of the international students hail from China and India, both emerging middle-income countries and engines of global growth.
Universities take the largest share, hosting a fifth of the international student population, and receiving almost 40% of the tuition income.
This thin slice of statistics reflects what keeps the sector humming along. The sellers – educational institutions – desire income and profit, and the buyers – Asian students – want decent qualifications from an English-speaking country.
You might think that I’ve painted a rather crude picture of international education, but I’ve yet to meet someone who has attributed the $4 billion dollar figure to the desire for world peace.
But even if world peace is not at the forefront or the producers and consumers’ minds, it doesn’t mean that international education is only worth in terms of dollars and cents. It is, after all, not a sector that deals with milk powder or premium beef, but a sector that is capable of transforming lives of all students, the educators, and the community.
The University of Waikato, for example, hosts many nationalities among its students. As an international student myself, I feel privileged to be able to interact with my peers from Vietnam, India, China, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Vanuatu , Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Timor Leste. I enjoy learning about their different histories and social customs.
I am beginning to build a global network of friends and colleagues. And while I cannot promise there will be world peace, I can say that I have grown to be more sensitive and appreciative of the different, and at times, conflicting, geopolitics across the world stage. In other words, I am learning how to be a global citizen. I’m not sure whether my Kiwi peers have the same experience, or feel the same way. But the research suggests that they are probably ambivalent or indifferent.
Perhaps Prime Minister Jacinda Arden could offer all of us some inspiration to become more globally minded and action-oriented. In her speech to the United Nations General Assembly, she said, and I quote:
“Given the challenges we face today, and how truly global they are in their nature and impact, the need for collective action and multilateralism has never been clearer.”
PM Arden was talking about climate change. I think the same applies to international education.
The value of international education must not remain solely at the level of trade. It has the enormous potential to build bridges across cultural and political divides. My conclusion is for you to take the first step in making it happen.
Peer support for doctoral students meets emotional and cultural needs outside power relations imposed by institutional structures and authority figures.
I was recently invited to contribute a blog post to the Trust Me! blog, an amazing resource for research supervisor development, helmed by Dr Kay Guccione, Chair of the University of Sheffield Mentoring Network. My post is based on a recent article I wrote about how peer support and student advocacy are important resources for supporting international (indeed, all) doctoral students. The original post is re-produced here with kind permission from Kay Guccione.
[Journal article ref: Lee, S. (2017). Peer Support for International Doctoral Students in Managing Supervision Relationships. Journal of International Students, 7(4), 1096–1103. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1035971]
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I write from the perspective of a former postgraduate student leader (peer-mentoring others) and an international doctoral student. Based on my personal doctoral experiences, and interactions with fellow doctoral students, I share how peer support addresses supervision-related issues that are not easily met by administrative processes or supervisors themselves.
In the New Zealand context, the early period of one’s PhD candidature is ‘conditional’ and the candidate has to prepare a research proposal (or report), and a research ethics application if applicable, to be approved by the end of 6 months (extendable to 9 months). Thus, the most important milestone of a first-year PhD student was reaching ‘confirmed enrolment’. The stress of not seeming to make progress in meeting that milestone is compounded for international students who face family, societal, and/or financial pressure to succeed.
The stress of possible failure, as I have experienced for myself, comes about from supervision practices that do not provide encouragement to the developing researcher, and/or clear guidance for the documentation required for confirmation. Students who are new to the country and the institutional culture may be trying to make sense of their supervisors’ communication style and unspoken expectations. One may be trying very hard to read between the lines, while respecting the supervisors’ authority, and at the same time, wondering how far, and how best to assert one’s autonomy and epistemological perspective. Such negotiations may even continue past the confirmed enrolment stage and into the unfolding doctoral journey.
Across self-help guides and well-meaning (or maybe just mean) advice, such worries are often dismissed as ‘normal’ or somewhat needing to be better managed by the student. Rare is the response that asks supervisors to take greater responsibility in engaging with their students, especially those who are negotiating with intersecting demands of cultural ‘adaptation’, scholarly independence, and personal pressures of dealing with failure (however defined by the individual).
In my role as a postgraduate student representative at the university, I regularly engaged with international doctoral students. After I stepped down from the leadership position, I continued to mentor peers as and when the need arose. Having gone through a fairly rough first year, but coming out stronger at the end of it, provided me the insight to assist my peers in making sense of their experiences. I had also personally been on the receiving end of constructive advice from a more experienced peer. Had it not been for her regular following up on my situation, I might not have taken action to address my own well-being as a doctoral student.
In my conversations with fellow doctoral students, the issues they raised was more often than not related to the supervision relationship or supervision/communication practices. I usually respond by pointing out the various institutional structures that provide support for doctoral students. While many students had some idea of the hierarchy and reporting lines, few were prepared to use official routes of seeking redress. The suspicion of the efficacy of bureaucratic intervention was one reason; not wishing to expend additional emotional and mental energy was another; avoiding the embarrassment and shame of being exposed was also a likely reason if admitted. We would then discuss communication strategies, talk through possible outcomes, and debate on what a best case scenario would look like. Sometimes they concluded that institutional intervention was necessary. At other times, they chose to ‘wait and see’. It was also useful for us to rehearse what they wished to say to supervisors or other authority figures. Our conversations, done in private, did not promise to make things perfect. If anything, it reinforced the reality of imperfect but negotiable supervision experiences.
The doctoral journey is notorious for being isolating and emotionally draining. Institutions, especially at the faculty level, need to make concerted efforts to encourage peer interactions and peer mentorship so PhD students have opportunities to consult, debate and consider possibilities regarding supervision issues in a safe and supportive environment. As an international doctoral student, I have experienced and observed the benefits of peer support, especially when institutional structures and authority figures are not able to satisfactorily meet emotional and cultural needs.
The year-end was a bumper crop of conferences, varied and productive but for different reasons. At the beginning of 2017, I had only planned on presenting at one conference, but along the way, other opportunities came along that were hard to turn down. Despite working up a hectic schedule of five presentations at four events over three weeks (and managing sore throats in between), it was an extremely rewarding period of connecting my work to a larger audience, establishing new connections, and reinforcing existing ties.
My first conference was the annual NZARE (New Zealand Association for Research in Education) held on home ground at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, from 20 to 22 November. This was my first NZARE conference and actually hesitated submitting an abstract because I had the impression that my field of international education was not of particular interest to an audience focused on domestic issues in New Zealand schools. However, being in contact with the ‘Students and Emerging Researchers’ caucus group representative led to several conversations on Facebook and I was able to gather some momentum for an idea to propose a symposium on international education in New Zealand.
Subsequently, I rounded up two other postgraduate colleagues who had similar research areas, and called on my supervisor to be our chair for the symposium. Preparation for the symposium took some effort to coordinate, such as tying our different research topics together and doing our own internal peer review of abstracts and presentations, mostly through email or online meetings I’m glad to report that we worked well together and our symposium attracted a warm and cozy audience of about 15 or so people. Although international education has yet to catch on as a special interest group or an important theme within NZARE, I’m pleased that I’ve made a start in raising the profile of this particular aspect of education in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Presenting on my research on international students
I also presented another paper at the NZARE conference, not based on my research, but on my personal experiences as a PhD student in New Zealand, titled “The promise of diasporic academics: Potential partnerships between the local and global”. More about this presentation here, but would like to add that the presentation resonated with many in the audience, especially the postgraduate students. This then led to interactions with new postgraduate friends from other universities in New Zealand and Australia. Connecting with other emerging researchers in education was certainly one of the highlights of the NZARE conference, and I hope future iterations of the conference will consider having a larger focus on postgraduate students.
The next couple of events took place at the University of Otago in Dunedin, an institution which I’ve long admired from afar. On 26 November, I attended the Education, Migration and Translation Research Symposium organised by the Centre for Global Migrations. The one-day multi-disciplinary symposium was varied in its presentations ranging from the classroom, to community, to larger ideological issues operating in diasporic and multiethnic spaces. Despite the wide-ranging topics, I enjoyed and learnt from the high quality presentations, not least the keynote presentation by Professor Michael Singh who demonstrated strong theoretical and historical links among the three big themes of education, migration and translation.
Education, Migration and Translation Research Symposium organised by the Centre for Global Migrations, University of Otago, 26 November 2017
This one day symposium was truly an unforgettable experience where we spent most of that Sunday in one seminar room, not only sampling a large array of research, but having rich conversations with one another. In contrast to the intimate setting of the symposium was the NZASIA Conference held from 27 to 29 November, also at the University of Otago. The disciplines represented at this conference stretched widely from studies on various Asian countries or cultures, in both the humanities and social sciences. The wide spectrum, however, meant that it was challenging to connect with others working in a similar field. In fact, only a handful of presenters were researching educational issues and were dispersed in various session across the conference.
Paper presentation at NZASIA Conference 2017
While the intellectual engagement was not as rich as I had experienced at the symposium, the pre-conference postgraduate workshops facilitated by representatives from Asia New Zealand Foundation were practical and immediately useful. In particular, the workshop on engaging with the media stood out for me as I learnt about how to interact with the media productively and how to maximize my social media presence. Something new I learnt was that Facebook is by far the most used social media platform in New Zealand, and that Facebook videos are becoming more mainstream in showcasing new ideas, policies and products.
The final conference I participated in was the ISANA/ANZSSA Conference held in the Gold Coast from 6 to 8 December. This was the one conference that I had planned on attending just as the last ISANA conference ended last year. The International Education Association ISANA conference is the one conference that brings together practitioners and researchers in the field of international education in the Australasia region. Having participated and benefited from the 2016 conference, as well as being involved with ISANA in New Zealand, I was looking forward to the 2017 edition, this time co-hosted with its ally organisation, ANZSSA (Australian New Zealand Student Services Association), the peak professional organisation for staff in the post secondary sector in Australasia.
The Gold Coast setting was probably popular with many, especially those who love the beach. Admittedly, I am not a Gold Coast fan and was missing previous conference venues such as Dunedin and Wellington. I did enjoy, however, staying at the Meriton Serviced Apartments which felt more like a 5-star hotel with its excellent amenities and service. Waking up to the 4:30 am sunrise meant I had several hours in the morning to do my rounds on social media and email, work on blog posts, and have a leisurely breakfast – all in the comfort of an air-conditioned living area.
My paper presentation was scheduled during the Doctoral Consortium breakout session on the first day of the conference. While I was not expecting a huge turnout as there were several other practitioner-focused breakout sessions to choose from, there was an enthusiastic response from the audience who asked questions relating to both practical and theoretical aspects of my research.
The many faces of conference presentations
Apart from presenting my paper, I also managed to connect with various delegates from both Australia and New Zealand, and getting a sense of the nature and scale of international education business at different institutions. I also managed to meet other postgraduate students and academics with similar research interests. As brief as our encounters were, our conversations nonetheless sparked the possibility of future collaborations.
My conference season ended on a high with my paper being awarded the IELTS Student Bursary Award for Best Paper during the conference dinner. What made this award extra special was that previous award winners were two female academics whose work I admired and whom I also looked up to as role models in academia. This was definitely a positive step towards my aspirations to be a researcher in international education!
It has been a whirlwind ride of seminar rooms, coffee breaks and networking, but I’ve been enriched by the many different conversations in the past three weeks. To mark the end of conference season, I’d like to give out my own awards for the following:
Best conference city: Dunedin, New Zealand. The lovely weather sustained throughout the five days I was there was simply unbeatable.
Best accommodation: Meriton Service Apartments. The Nespresso machine won me over in an instant. Uninterrupted wifi came a close second.
Best intellectual engagement: Education, Migration and Translation Research Symposium organised by the Centre for Global Migrations, University of Otago.
Best response to my presentation: NZARE Conference presentation – “The promise of diasporic academics: Potential partnerships between the local and global”.
Most relevant for my PhD research: Doctoral Consortium , ISANA/ANZSSA Conference.
Most conducive for postgraduate networking: NZASIA Conference. While I did not meet many in my field, there were plenty of opportunities to meet other postgraduate students during coffee and lunch breaks.
Not sure what conference season will look like next year but here’s hoping for similar, if not better experiences!
I first heard the term ‘diaspora academics’ at Wendy Larner’s keynote speech at the 2016 ISANA International Education Association Conference in Wellington. Against the backdrop of the internationalisation of higher education, Larner presented an argument about the increasing importance of diasporic academics, that is, those who have multiple national affiliations. Examples of diasporic academics include researchers from one country based in another country working on a collaborative project; an academic from one country relocating to another country; as well as research students from one country carrying out research in another country, or travelling between countries for research purposes. These academics or researchers who stay on more permanently in the host country are known as diasporic academics.
Larner argued that diasporic academics are valuable in advancing universities’ internationalisation strategies and policies. They are valuable because they act as transnational knowledge brokers or academic intermediaries. They broker international relationships between countries by using “their experiential understandings, linguistic skills and ability to read cultural nuance by providing insider accounts” (Larner, 2015, p. 202).
Larner also highlighted that a significant portion of diasporic academics are former international doctoral students who subsequently established their career in the host country. While she did not elaborate on this particular group, Larner’s presentation did get me thinking about whether I, and others, consider international doctoral students as valuable diasporic academics.
The thought of international doctoral students as diasporic academics provoked both excitement and disappointment in me. As an international doctoral student myself, I was thrilled by the idea that I could be considered valuable to my host institution. But the excitement quickly gave way to the day-to-day realities. Instead of being engaged in some cross-cultural understanding between my professional and research experiences and that of the host institutional community, interactions with domestic peers and established academics and researchers were hit and miss occasions in the absence of an authentic community of practice. These nagging feelings resonated with my fellow international doctoral students, often in private or quiet conversation.
In both the presentation and the article, I share my own experiences and observations of how international doctoral students do not seem to be meaningfully integrated into the larger academic community, but instead, remain within ‘international only’ circles.
Nonetheless, I remain hopeful that our value as diasporic academics can be realised through the indigenous Māori concept of mannakitanga, which means “… mutual care and respect for people, honouring one another or power sharing…” (Kukutai & Rata, 2017, p. 41). As I conclude in the article, if we truly value mannakitanga, then integrating international doctoral students into the fabric of university life would be less a burden and simply a way of doing things.
References
Kukutai, T., & Rata, A. (2017). From mainstream to Manaaki: Indigenising our approach to immigration. In D. Hall (ed.), Fair borders? Migration policy in the twenty-first century (pp. 26–45). Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books.
Larner, W. (2015). Globalising knowledge networks: Universities, diaspora strategies, and academic intermediaries. Geoforum, 59, 197–205. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.10.006
This post marks the start of a new blog – The Diasporic Academic. Starting a new blog allows me to choose a more appropriate title to reflect my current state of affairs. For the past two years, I was using Teacher Sherrie, a blog I started when I embarked on my MAT in TESOL, to write about my PhD experiences and research topics. I’ve been thinking about my academic narrative recently, and I realise that the ‘teacher’ label is simply not the right ‘frame’ for my current, and potentially, future endeavours.
I first heard about the term ‘diasporic academic’ from Wendy Larner during her Keynote Presentation at the 2016 ISANA conference. The presentation was based on her 2015 paper, and according to Larner (2015), the diasporic academic is defined as one with multiple national affiliations. Examples include a researcher from one country based in another country working on a collaborative project, and a doctoral student from one country carrying out research in another country, or travelling between countries for research purposes.
Image credit: Imma Moles
Apart from identifying academics as having links in more than one country, ‘diasporic’ further points to these individuals as being intermediaries, acting as transnational knowledge brokers. They broker international relationships between countries by using “their experiential understandings, linguistic skills and ability to read cultural nuance by providing insider accounts” (Larner, 2015, p. 202).
I remember being inspired by this perspective of foreign/non-native researchers. I wrote down personal notes on what this term meant to me and I discussed this term with some fellow international doctoral students. We concluded that the concept of the diasporic academic was promising but also lamented that the current university climate viewed international doctoral students as funding and research targets more than transnational knowledge brokers. My initial enthusiasm was snuffed out quickly enough.
Recently, however, the term ‘diasporic academic’ began to resonate with me again. In the past six months, I’ve been translating my data, analysing it through translanguaging efforts (Lewis, Jones, & Baker, 2012), that is, thinking in both English and Chinese to make sense of Chinese text and presenting the argument in English. I also finished a draft article on being a bilingual researcher, and presented about conducting cross-cultural research in an English-dominant environment. And then as I sat down thinking about who I was as an academic, what kind of narrative I was trying to write, the answer presented itself: I am a diasporic academic.
I am a diasporic academic, not only as a foreigner researching about international students in New Zealand, but also as a third generation Chinese Singaporean having to differentiate myself from other Chinese, both nationals and diaspora, to those unfamiliar with the ‘Chinese diaspora‘. I have to point out that ‘diaspora’ is a highly contested territory and many may disagree with how I have used the term. Nonetheless, I believe it is a term whose meaning is evolving with changing patterns of migration, whether temporary or permanent. And so the meaning I attach to being a diasporic academic will no doubt change in the course of developing an academic identity and career in the years to come.
References
Larner, W. (2015). Globalising knowledge networks: Universities, diaspora strategies, and academic intermediaries. Geoforum, 59, 197–205. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.10.006
Lewis, G., Jones, B., & Baker, C. (2012). Translanguaging: Developing its conceptualisation and contextualisation. Educational Research and Evaluation, 18(7), 655–670. http://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2012.718490
