Indigenizing Internationalization and Internationalizing Indigenization: Insights From a Virtual Study Abroad to Ireland, Jamaica, and Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

This paper aligns with the themes found in “The Transitions of Online Learning and Teaching” and “Sustaining Positive Change,” and reports on the collaborative work of a faculty member and an instructional designer from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, where Indigenization and internationalization are leading institutional priorities. Here we consider possibilities for greater collaboration between these disciplinary and programmatic imperatives for mutual benefit, which the shift to virtual learning during the Covid pandemic enabled. We explore the capacity of Virtual Study Abroad course design to synthesize Indigenous and Western pedagogies and methodologies to conceive of innovative curriculum consistent with the negotiation of epistemological third spaces through the design of a Virtual Study Abroad course focusing on educational systems in Ireland, Jamaica, and New Zealand. Major themes emerging from the data include the capacity of virtual learning to enhance the democratization of knowledge and the potential of participatory pedagogies and innovative assessment approaches to decolonize postsecondary curriculum. Ultimately, we hope that this work will serve to inform new institutional models and approaches, whereby Indigenization strategies serve to decolonize internationalization programs, and Indigenization efforts benefit from innovative programming emanating from internationalization initiatives. Such a reconceptualization holds the promise of mobilizing Higher Education in the service of social justice and the ‘global good.’