Abstract:
With shifting geopolitical landscape and rising nationalism, higher education (HE) increasingly constitutes ‘soft infrastructure’ to promote ‘culture’ through instilling into human experience, imagination and subjectivity. Notably, as a rising geopolitical player, China actively utilises internationalisation of HE to enhance its position. Under the high-profile ‘Belt and Road (B&R)’ initiative, China detailed measurers of attracting international students, such as establishing dedicated B&R scholarship. China is now the top study-abroad destination in Asia, with 53% students from B&R countries.
Literature analysing macro-level national policies pointed out China is shifting to State Developmentalism and Cultural Nationalism (Lin 2024; Rizvi 2019). In national discourse, international students are depicted as nexus of cultural diplomacy serving as ‘Chinese cultural ambassador’. However, there is limited research investigating how B&R students agentically (re)construct their identity while negotiating host expectations.
As such, this study adopts Archer (2003) ‘reflexivity’ to delineate how different types of reflexivity is manifested while international students negotiate their identity. This study conducts semi-structured interviews with 20 Chinese-government-funded degree international students studying in Beijing from different types of institutions/programs and various B&R countries.
Findings show student reflexivity consists of host communicative, autonomous and intercultural meta reflexivity. Students with host communicative reflexivity internalise their role as bona fide cultural ambassador willingly promoting China. Students with autonomous reflexivity identify as detached international researcher/learner while only attending to host expectations for utilitarian interests or necessity. Students with intercultural meta-reflexivity deconstruct the role of cultural ambassador and act to improve their intercultural surroundings. Importantly, different reflexivity is shaped by students’ predispositions related to their previous educational/socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as their everyday experience in China which may (not) align with national-level B&R-related discourse. Consequently, different reflexivity results in differing subjectivity and imagination which may (re)produce, contest or reinterpret the discourse of cultural nationalism.
This provides indicative implications for nations and universities to adopt a more attraction-oriented and reciprocal approach to cultural diplomacy and international education. Future research should evaluate the effects of rising nationalism (or its contestations) on everyday HE practices and various stakeholders including but not limited to domestic/international students and academics.
References
Archer, Margaret. 2003. Structure, agency and the internal conversation: Cambridge University Press.
Lin, Jason Cong. 2024. "The rising China is not a ‘sick man’anymore: Cultural nationalism in the Xi Jinping era." Journal of Contemporary China 33 (145):83-100.
Rizvi, Fazal. 2019. "Public diplomacy and the internationalization of higher education." Higher Education in Southeast Asia and beyond (6):7-10.
Literature analysing macro-level national policies pointed out China is shifting to State Developmentalism and Cultural Nationalism (Lin 2024; Rizvi 2019). In national discourse, international students are depicted as nexus of cultural diplomacy serving as ‘Chinese cultural ambassador’. However, there is limited research investigating how B&R students agentically (re)construct their identity while negotiating host expectations.
As such, this study adopts Archer (2003) ‘reflexivity’ to delineate how different types of reflexivity is manifested while international students negotiate their identity. This study conducts semi-structured interviews with 20 Chinese-government-funded degree international students studying in Beijing from different types of institutions/programs and various B&R countries.
Findings show student reflexivity consists of host communicative, autonomous and intercultural meta reflexivity. Students with host communicative reflexivity internalise their role as bona fide cultural ambassador willingly promoting China. Students with autonomous reflexivity identify as detached international researcher/learner while only attending to host expectations for utilitarian interests or necessity. Students with intercultural meta-reflexivity deconstruct the role of cultural ambassador and act to improve their intercultural surroundings. Importantly, different reflexivity is shaped by students’ predispositions related to their previous educational/socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as their everyday experience in China which may (not) align with national-level B&R-related discourse. Consequently, different reflexivity results in differing subjectivity and imagination which may (re)produce, contest or reinterpret the discourse of cultural nationalism.
This provides indicative implications for nations and universities to adopt a more attraction-oriented and reciprocal approach to cultural diplomacy and international education. Future research should evaluate the effects of rising nationalism (or its contestations) on everyday HE practices and various stakeholders including but not limited to domestic/international students and academics.
References
Archer, Margaret. 2003. Structure, agency and the internal conversation: Cambridge University Press.
Lin, Jason Cong. 2024. "The rising China is not a ‘sick man’anymore: Cultural nationalism in the Xi Jinping era." Journal of Contemporary China 33 (145):83-100.
Rizvi, Fazal. 2019. "Public diplomacy and the internationalization of higher education." Higher Education in Southeast Asia and beyond (6):7-10.