Reimagining International and Comparative Research in Higher Education: An Anticolonial Critical Review

The authors offer a critical overview of the literature on international and comparative higher education to inform future studies and to reimagine the possibilities of a future anticolonial higher education. That is, they offer a conversation about the still-present colonial classifications of people and territories, the Western imaginary, whiteness as higher education futurity, and the structures of power impacting higher education around the world. The authors begin with a necessary discussion on the historical foundation of higher education worldwide, rooted in colonialism and manifested today through neoliberalism and neocolonialism. Next, the authors critically discuss common themes found in the international and comparative higher education literature, such as governance, quality assurance, autonomy, academic freedom, access and financing, rankings, and the role of knowledge production in the neoliberal economy. They follow with a section on how these trends manifest today in Colombia and Ghana. They conclude with some thoughts on how we can engage in liminal and anticolonial work in the academy.

Keywords: critical internationalization; comparative and international research; anticolonial internationalization