Journal of Further and Higher Education

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Intercultural philosophy and internationalisation

of higher education: epistemologies of the South,
geopolitics of knowledge and epistemological
polylogue

Hamza R’boul

To cite this article: Hamza R’boul (2022) Intercultural philosophy and internationalisation
of higher education: epistemologies of the South, geopolitics of knowledge and
epistemological polylogue, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 46:8, 1149-1160, DOI:
10.1080/0309877X.2022.2055451

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2022.2055451

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JOURNAL OF FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION
2022, VOL. 46, NO. 8, 1149–1160
https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2022.2055451

ORIGINAL PAPER

Intercultural philosophy and internationalisation of higher

education: epistemologies of the South, geopolitics of knowledge
and epistemological polylogue
Hamza R’boul
Institute for Advanced Social Research, Public University of Navarre, Pamplona, Spain

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The enduring colonial-like relations among Northern and Southern spaces Received 13 December 2020
continue to influence knowledge production and dissemination. Critical Accepted 14 March 2022
scholarship on epistemic diversity in higher education has argued that KEYWORDS
knowledge circulation is often unilateral considering how global partner­ Internationalisation; higher
ships among universities and higher education models are still unidirec­ education; intercultural
tional. While Northern ways of knowing dominate what is taught and philosophy; geopolitics of
researched in higher education institutions, indigenous knowledges are knowledge; knowledge
not always represented in their local universities due to skewed geopo­ representation
litics of knowledges. That is why emerging forms of resistance such as the
calls for decolonising the curriculum have emphasised the need to decon­
struct the ideological systems of exclusion in contemporary higher educa­
tion. This article discusses how the internationalisation of higher
education may be running the risk of reproducing epistemic injustice
and uneven geopolitics of knowledge. With the West-led internationalisa­
tion discourse and the ascendancy of neoliberal tendencies, universities in
the Global South might be experiencing deeper epistemic dependency.
To undermine the dominance of western epistemologies, less popular
ways of knowing are expected to assume a central position in the global
geopolitics of knowledge. This article makes a case for embracing inter­
cultural philosophy as an emancipating framework that offers the possi­
bility of reconciling the world’s epistemologies by promoting inter-
epistemic dialogue. The nuance of intercultural philosophy and its analy­
sis of the epistemic relationships at play granted by epistemological
polylogue can encourage pluri-epistemologies in higher education.

Introduction
This paper understands Global South as ‘not just a place (although it is also that), but a condition (of
dispossession)’ (Shome 2019, 203). The Global South is not a geographical region, but it is a status of
invisibility. In terms of where the Global South is situated, it is commonly understood to include
spaces of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. However, it is important to note the Global
South can be found within the Global North since certain groups and minorities do not enjoy the
same level of recognition in northern contexts (R’boul 2020).
Epistemology refers to the theory of knowledge that defines what knowledge is and how it is
acquired. It is a particular frame of reference that determines the methods and the type of analysis
employed to generate valid knowledge. It denotes the necessary conditions within which knowledge
is assumed, justified and well founded. Importantly, I am using ontology to denote the underlying

CONTACT Hamza R’boul hamzarboul4@gmail.com Institute for Advanced Social Research, Public University of Navarre,
Pamplona, Spain
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
1150 H. R’BOUL

beliefs for understanding the world and being. This concept is used throughout the manuscript to
highlight the differences among individuals and communities in comprehending their existence and,
therefore, what type of knowledge is sound and how it is constructed. The importance of using these
two conceptions comes from their mutually constitutive relationship as they shape and inform each
other. While the focus here is on how Western and non-western epistemologies interact, it is
important to draw on how the colonial differences have influenced both non-western ontologies
and epistemologies as they rendered them less visible and viable in the eyes of the Global North.
Referring to western and non-western epistemology frames the constitutive relationality between
power and knowledge. Although the Global North and South are contested terms, establishing
a discussion that is centred on the differentialism of Western and Southern knowledge allows
clarifying not only the epistemological differences in what is counted as knowledge but also flags
the unbalanced appreciation of those knowledges. This differentialism has been created as a result of
irreducible and enduring colonial differences that problematises the legitimacy of (post)-colony. The
use of this binary is rather not to obscure, but to delineate two categories of thought and the praxis
of knowing which are valued unevenly worldwide. In particular, western knowledge arguably
stretches from the Greek, Christianity, Renaissance to contemporary North Atlantic knowledge
production.
Epistemologies of the south refer to (a) knowledges and perspectives developed by Southern
scholars whose level of academic recognition is limited due to their situatedness within the margins
of knowledge circulation as perpetuated by lingering structures of coloniality and (b) knowledges
that are underpinned by local southern ontologies, conceptualities, cultures, and ethics. These
include forms of knowledges that are formulated in alignment with non-popular sources to western
episteme or religious principles, e.g. Islamic philosophy. Epistemologies of the South indicate the
thinking that is rooted in the logics historically produced and culturally marked by the local realities,
ecologies and ontologies of Southern contexts. Examples and explanations of Southern epistemol­
ogy and ontology include research methods in non-western contexts (Severo and Makoni 2019), de
Sousa Santos’s (2014) epistemologies of the South, Asante’s (2014) Afrocentricity, Miike’s (2019)
Asiacentricity, and Chinese Minzu (Dervin and Yuan 2021). For instance, in South America, many
societies had local systems of agro-ecology inspired by their religious and cultural values such as the
Milpa in Mexico or the Waru Waru in Peru which were later abandoned during the Spanish conquest.
Another example of indigenous epistemologies is ‘buen vivir’ (Sumak kawsay in Quechua or good
living in English) which has been developed in Latin America to encourage breaking away with
Western thought and advancing local perspectives to reformulate dominant perspectives (R’boul
2021).
The mainstream of higher education is largely situated within the geographical and epistemolo­
gical confines of the USA and western Europe (Connell 2017). Knowledges coming from Africa, Latin
America, Asia and even from developed nations such as China and Japan remain peripheral in
internationalised universities and geopolitics of knowledge (Mignolo 2018). This is manifested in
how western hegemony maintains its authority by positioning the different other as deficient (Díaz
2018); to be excluded or sidelined as a knower impinges the epistemic dignity of less popular
cultures. An important dimension here is how the mobility of educational provision is imbalanced; an
assumption that suggests that the Anglo-American hegemonic domination is still sustained despite
the international movement of students, faculty and knowledges.
Taking these insights into account, this paper speaks of the entanglement of the internationalisa­
tion of higher education, the skewed geopolitics of knowledge and epistemic injustice in contem­
porary universities. This paper conceptualises the process of internationalisation as ‘the increasing
porosity of national higher education systems and the border-crossing activities of increasingly
strategic higher education institutions’ (Zapp and Ramirez 2019, 476). The main premise is that the
emergence of the knowledge economy and the growth of internationalisation have influenced the
objectives, aspirations and the underpinning understandings of higher education ‘across the world
in different ways and leading to different consequences’ (Jowi 2012, 153).
 JOURNAL OF FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION 1151

The dual aim of this paper is to discuss a certain case of epistemic injustice as manifested in
internationalised higher education and to develop a nuanced characterisation of counter-
hegemonic practices in which Southern knowledges’ inclusion is defined by their influence. This
paper speaks of the decolonial potential of intercultural philosophy as an approach that can
accommodate epistemic diversity in internationalised higher education. While the discussion on
the lack of polyvocality in higher education is not new, this paper explains intercultural philosophy as
a critical endeavour to account for the necessity of considering both the structural causes and
structural remedies of epistemic injustice in higher education. The main objective here is to draw
officials and decision-makers’ attention to the colonial-like relations between Northern and Southern
epistemologies in internationalised higher education. Importantly, higher education needs similar
approaches that contribute to more epistemic justice including endeavours of decolonising the
westernised university with its American-Eurocentric knowledge (Grosfoguel, Hernández, and
Velasquez 2016). That is why any discussion on the possibilities of epistemic justice and its implica­
tions for higher education (Walker 2020) should necessarily engage with the themes of structural
power inequalities (Mignolo and Walsh 2018), coloniality of power, knowledge and being (Quijano
2007; Maldonado-Torres 2007).
This paper reveals that knowledge circulation and management in internationalised higher
education has to be anchored in the positive expansionary development that is primarily driven
by the principles of intercultural philosophy (Wimmer 2007). It is a framework that not only accounts
for global inequalities in terms of knowledge representation but also encourages universities to
recognise and value alternative epistemologies. Realising the polylogues perspective in higher
education would meaningfully account for issues of power imbalances and unfair representations
of southern knowledges. In order to allow for the epistemic rationale as an indispensable feature of/
for internationalisation, epistemic diversity should be based on promoting North-South university
partnerships that are not unilateral in contribution and influence.

The state of epistemic diversity in global knowledge and higher education

Historical legacies of coloniality continue to exist as the darker underside of western modernity. The
cultural complex of European modernity/rationality has established a universal paradigm of rational
knowledge in which the western knowing-subject is superior. The confluence of modernity, coloni­
ality and the production of knowledge has situated Southern languages, ecologies and epistemol­
ogies within the exteriority of modernity (Mignolo 2018; de Sousa Santos 2018). In other words,
modernity has constructed exteriorities that formalise the epistemic inferiority of southern contexts
through emphasising the exclusivity of knowledge. Therefore, despite the ostensible inclusion of
southern spaces in/to modernity, they remain at its margins due to their invisibility and subalternity.
It is not only a matter of the non-visibility of non-western modes of knowing; we also have to
struggle with the lack of conviction in the epistemological validity of non-western knowing subjects
which has been a result of the colonial framing of unpopular spaces. The paper asks the question of
whether the internationalisation of higher education may have been presented and/or used to
consolidate the epistemic colonial domination. Although this is an issue with considerable propor­
tions, it is important to initiate a critical discussion in which internationalisation of higher education
is doubted with regard to its advertised principles, objectives and implementation, at least in relation
to the sought-after epistemic diversity.
Epistemic governance refers to ‘the epistemic structure and “knowledge paradigms” that underlie
higher education’ (Campbell & Carayannis, 2013, 1). It signifies the influence of power relations in
generating knowledge about socio-ecological issues, particularly the interrelation of policy-making
and scientific knowledge (Vadrot 2011). However, Walker and Martinez-Vargas (2020) argues that this
conception does not take into account coloniality, the uneven playing field in knowledge production
and what individuals in institutions do, paying little attention to agentic practices subduing or
promoting epistemic freedoms. They engage with the limitations of ‘epistemic governance’ as it
1152 H. R’BOUL

reduces constructions of knowledge to simply an uncritical quality project at the level of the
institution. They introduce ‘colonial epistemic structure’ as a framework that builds on the insights
of epistemic governance and further includes the questions of history and power as well as the
agency of academic researchers as their unjust epistemic practices are ‘manifested in relationships
between countries and agents in the South and the North’ (p. 2). With this in mind, this paper
recognises that discussing the skewed geopolitics of knowledges in universities through the lenses
of global epistemic inequalities and power imbalances is required to unearth how internationalisa­
tion in higher education might either provide opportunities or challenges for the knowledge project
in the Global South.
An important conception clarifying the subtle ways in which western epistemic dominance works
is epistemicide which has been widely used in decolonial and postcolonial discourses. Epistemicide
refers to the destruction of existing knowledge; it means that colonialism has not only inflected
suffering on people but also brought violence against indigenous knowledges (de Sousa Santos
2014). The very fact that culture heavily shapes its knowledge is reflective of how the various forms of
knowledge are inextricably conditioned and formulated by people’s identity, ontology and ways of
making sense of the world. That is why knowledges that are anchored in ideologies and ways of
knowing that are essentially different from the dominant epistemologies will be silenced and
invisibilised; this is particularly the case of many knowledges originated in the Global South/Third
worlds. These knowledges remain unseen as they are unpublished and unrecognisable to the
gatekeepers of knowledge (journal editors and publishers); therefore, they are generally not included
in school and universities curricula leading to their extinction. Such practices would systematically
destruct rival forms of knowledge regardless of their potential contribution to humanity. The
endeavour to undermine western hegemony requires more nuanced frameworks than simply calling
for the inclusion of southern epistemologies without a profound understanding of the mechanism
through which skewed geopolitics of knowledge are maintained. It is indeed necessary to underpin
any counter-hegemonic vision by ‘the concern about the epistemicide of higher education curricula
that continue to be imbued with Eurocentric knowledge’ (Trahar et al. 2019, 152).

Internationalisation of higher education: an agenda for coloniality of knowledge?

The irreducible colonial differences in relations within knowledge continue to shape the epistemo­
logical structure of universities. Western episteme traps Southern knowledges in a double bind.
Southern thinking either exudes a considerable level of similarity to western episteme that is
consequently rendered derivative or it involves unpopular ways of knowing to the extent it is
doubted with regards it is scientific effectiveness and authenticity. With the shifting landscape of
higher education, the type of inequality entrenched within the university is largely due to Western-
inspired, commodified knowledge production processes (Dawson 2020)
Given the skewed geopolitics of knowledge, it is indeed important to ask whether internationa­
lisation is based on mutual benefits for both developed and developing countries. A major concern is
that the ‘processes of globalisation and the proliferation of internationalisation agendas represent
yet another vehicle to promote Euro-American logics in the guise of the ‘global’ (Majee and Ress
2020, 466). For example, although the Gulf states and some Asian countries are recruiting large
numbers of English-speaking academics from developed countries, they are mainly brought over to
establish western models of higher education and to satellite campuses of western universities (Tight
2019). Such practices are running the risk of aggravating epistemic injustices and further margin­
alising local knowledges as the curriculum is more likely to assume that western episteme is
inherently superior and valid.
The internationalisation of higher education has been perceived as a response to globalisation
pressures which perpetuate power imbalances between the Global North and South (Guilherme,
Morosini, and Dos Santos 2018; Tight 2019). Internationalisation has arguably covered the processes
formerly assumed under the themes of ‘westernisation’, ‘modernisation’ and ‘liberalisation’ (Yang
 JOURNAL OF FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION 1153

2002). Embracing such labels as the essence of internationalisation is might reproducing the
hegemony of colonial episteme structure. Given the current global inequalities, southern higher
education institutions are likely to be enmeshed even more deeply in western theorisations and
methodologies. Due to the power dynamics at play, these labels with their attendant understandings
may be understood as the very requirements of practising internationalisation. Southern universities
may associate the process of internationalisation with the importance of reflecting the distinctive
logics, cultures and workings of the western model of the university; then, being internationalised is
synonymous with being westernised, especially considering the neoliberal motives. It is important to
reconsider the type of dominant discourses that shape Southern universities’ perception of
internationalisation.
Another manifestation of unequal global relations in internationalised higher education is that
while people are moving from the non-western peripheries to the western centres, ideas are moving
from the western centres to the non-western peripheries; that is why it is safe to assume that
internationalisation and globalisation become westernisation (Liu 2020, 2–3). Moreover, internatio­
nalisation of higher education worldwide is characterised by Anglophonic domination of the knowl­
edge economy evidenced by how ‘four English-speaking countries (the US, UK, Australia and
Canada) are destination to over 50% of the students studying abroad’ (Díaz, 2018, p. 21); this is
a fact that has largely undermined the significance of local languages for internationalisation (Ha
2013). Therefore, internationalisation of higher education is operationalised as an approach that
takes place only through English and knowledge of that language is enough for full participation in
the internationalised academy (Liddicoat 2016).
Since the current discourse on the internationalisation of higher education is mainly western (Liu
2020), it may allow for western-centric neoliberal tendencies ‘to be advanced through the discourse
of internationalization’ (Bamberger, Morris, and Yemini 2019, 203). In Africa, for instance, internatio­
nalisation is presented as an important instrument for socio-economic development and a strategy
for improving higher education; however, unintended consequences of the internationalisation of
higher education include the brain drain, the commodification of higher education, the persistence
of inequality between global north-south universities (Alemu 2014). The type of internationalisation
currently practised in universities is more oriented towards developing global cross-border perspec­
tives than undermining the coloniality of knowledge and diversifying epistemologies. The issue is
that southern knowledges are still limited to their spatial locality because internationalisation may be
used as a label through which universities can claim diversity without challenging or dismantling
Western dominance.
Although internationalisation promotes collaborations between universities, agencies, and non-
profit, such efforts may often assume a one-way flow of knowledge from ‘developed’ to ‘developing’
nations (Stein, Andreotti, and Suša 2019). This is an assumption that does not reflect the cosmopo­
litan sensibilities that internationalisation claims to provide. These complications stem from the fact
that internationalisation of higher education has largely been theorised and implemented from
a ‘Euro-American perspective, taking less into account how legacies of colonial expansion impose
unique demands on universities’ (Majee and Ress 2020, 463). Therefore, it is necessary to examine
non-western perspectives on internationalisation informed by local abilities, needs and goals.
Because postcolonial contexts are still grappling with the enduring colonial legacies and coloni­
ality of knowledge (Quijano 2007; Maldonado-Torres 2007), decolonising efforts in higher education
have not been smooth or linear; they are rather interlaced with a number of context-dependent
variables and the potential difficulties that may complicate the attempt to break with colonial
legacies and structures, e.g. South African and Brazilian universities (Majee and Ress 2020). While
southern contexts are overwhelmed by their struggles towards intellectual decolonisation, the
internationalisation of higher education may even complicate these issues if it is not conceptualised
and enacted wisely. The decolonisation of higher education is expected to undermine academic
imperialism and racial favouritism in academia. In order to achieve these goals, both Southern and
Northern universities have to reflect these attempts by developing renewing strategies that are
1154 H. R’BOUL

counter-hegemonic and diversity-encouraging. For instance, the internationalisation of curricula

should entail the inclusion of marginalised epistemologies at the level of both theory and
methodology.

Intercultural philosophy as a nuanced decolonial option: epistemological polylogues

The relevance of intercultural philosophy to higher education is perceived in encouraging reciprocal
enlightenment and enrichment among the different cultures that comprise humanity (Gutema 2015)
through emphasising epistemological polylogue. The state of knowledge singularity in modern
universities has to be reconfigured and decentred by establishing meaningful collaboration amongst
different epistemologies. Intercultural philosophy tries to deconstruct/undermine the western/
northern hegemony of the philosophical tradition by advancing a reconstructive project anchored
in the culturally oriented cognition and philosophy. It, therefore, gives ‘the formulations of questions
and problems priority over philosophical traditions and aims at combining different thinking tradi­
tions each of them with their “own” formulations of questions and possible solutions as “equal” parts
of discourse’ (Yousefi 2007, 104). While intercultural philosophy is heavily anchored in hermeneutics
(Mall 2016), it is still pertinent to fields characterised by practical applications e.g. education
(Schepen 2017) since it is presented as a ‘novelty that incites development’ (Sweet 2014, 187).
Wimmer (2007) distinguishes four different types of cultural centrisms being influential in inter­
cultural encounters in philosophy: (a) expansive means that there is a ‘centre, where reigns true faith,
definite knowledge, objective progress. And there is a periphery, ruled by paganism and superstition,
backwardness and underdevelopment’ (p.3). (b) Integrative relatively recognises the value of per­
iphery, but it claims that ‘No further activity of the centre is thought to be necessary, since the
attractivity of the centre is so strong that every activity comes from the periphery, aiming to adapt
oneself to the way of the centre’ (p.3). (c) Separative accepts the co-existence of different convictions
side by side emphasising diversity and multiculturality but considers cultural differences to be
insurmountable (p.4). (d) Tentative centrism encourages dialogue perceiving ‘every concrete
instance of thinking is not held to be final, but provisional’ leading to ‘processes of influencing
which can be intended to develop mutual argumentation’ (p.4).
To create a polylogue of knowledges, four traditions were suggested to reflect the interactions,
either unilateral (⇒) or bilateral (⇒⇐) influences, among different epistemologies. (a) The unilateral
centristic influence can be represented as monologue without any reciprocal influence (A ⇒ B and
A ⇒ C and A ⇒ D). (b) Unilateral and transitive influence entailing an extended monologue (A ⇒ B and
A ⇒ C and A ⇒ D and B ⇒C) which indicates a chain of influence since A informs/teaches B then it
imparts that knowledge to C. (c) Partially bilateral and multilateral influence exemplifying dialogues
(A ⇒⇐ B and A ⇒ C and A ⇒ D via A ⇒⇐ B and A ⇒ C and A ⇒ D and B ⇒ C up to A ⇒⇐ B and A ⇒⇐
C and B ⇒⇐ C and B ⇒⇐ D and C ⇒⇐ D and A ⇒ D) which entails a relative appreciation of other
knowledges without reaching complete mutual influencing. We may see this paradigm in the current
European-North American dialogue with the inclusion of the southern context. Importantly, (d)
Complete multilateral influence establishing polylogues among (A ⇒⇐ B and A ⇒⇐ C and A ⇒⇐
D and B ⇒⇐ C and B ⇒⇐ D and C ⇒⇐ D) with equally intensive influences from all sides to all sides in
a multidirectional dynamic (Wimmer 2007).
Also, intercultural philosophy can be a point of departure for promoting epistemic justice (Fricker
2007, 2013) and making variety heard. It provides an account of epistemic justice that incorporates
multiple voices and attentively accounts for the context and the relationships at play while practising
internationalisation. Epistemic justice should also include ‘Testimonial injustice ‘, ‘Hermeneutical
injustice‘ (Fricker 2007, 2013). Testimonial injustice refers to the very process of doubting one’s
epistemic capacity as they are biased against on the basis of their race, gender, location or disability,
etc. It occurs when someone’s testimony, opinion and knowledge is assigned a low level of credibility
because of their affiliation with a particular group. Hermeneutical injustice recognises that due to
long-continued ascendancies and silences of some groups of people from producing knowledge
 JOURNAL OF FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION 1155

about themselves, their experiences are ultimately not well understood. This lack of available
knowledge renders their experiences unfit to any concepts or analysis known to them or the others.
Therefore, persons who have been historically excluded continue to struggle to interpret their
ontologies and ecologies.
This perspective is currently an ideal vision that does not depict reality and the type of inequalities
characterising epistemic relationships in universities. However, it can serve as the favourite type of
thinking to underpin the restructuring of higher education and practising internationalisation. It can
be used as a framework of non-centristic knowledge circulation in higher education. The first step is
to treat everyone equally as a knower; this perception can only be verified when all knowledges
regardless of the forms of epistemology that construct them are influential to the extent where the
knowledge being used is diversified. Specifically presenting intercultural philosophy as a potential
framework for encouraging pluri-epistemologies is because of its possible contribution to ascertain­
ing cross-pollination among various knowledges in higher education.

Relevance to internationalised higher education

The nuance of intercultural philosophy and epistemic capacity granted by epistemological poly­
logue can encourage pluri-epistemologies in higher education. Epistemological polylogues can
undermine the subtle ways in which scholarship, pedagogy and policy in higher education privilege
western constructs; they encourage practices that do not only promote southern epistemologies but
also apply them. The objective of epistemological polylogue is to produce decentring effect through
pluralising relationships and cross-pollination dynamics among various epistemologies.
Epistemological polylogues can also help develop a well-rounded understanding of the Global
North, through extending knowledge about how perspectives, communities and cultures outside
it have shaped the Global North.
The main point here is that juxtaposing the West against its supposed opposite or complimentary
half (the South) may not be efficient or convincing because there should be a polylogue instead of
two competing discourses striving for recognition meaning that boundaries should be blurred by
objectivity, not neutrality. However, the recovery of non-Western discourses for decolonisation is an
argument that is worthwhile and should be actively pursued. Decolonisation’s reasoning is in
alignment with intercultural philosophy since it can ensure that relations within knowledges are
not alienating of alternative perspectives from the Global South. The argument for the influential
participation of alternative epistemologies in higher education is to promote models of knowledge-
making that are not derivative from the Western conceptions with regard to the dominant structures
and methods of constructing knowledge.
Due to significant stratification within global higher education (Marginson 2016), developed
countries are often the location for the universities with the highest ranking and prestige
(Shahjahan and Morgan 2016). Even those who tend to critique the hegemony of the US and
Europe on higher education (ranking systems, publishing and attracting prominent scholars) often
endorse these hierarchies. That is why global partnerships tend to be unidirectional as universities in
northern spaces are informing and disseminating knowledge to universities in Southern spaces.
These practices are, therefore, leading to ‘the reproduction of epistemic and economic dominance
even within higher education partnerships designed to address this’ (Stein, Andreotti, and Suša 2019,
287). This is particularly where intercultural philosophy can be useful; although there are partner­
ships on the international scale they are often skewed, unilateral and dominated by the northern
side.
The aim is to promote a model of higher education in which knowledges coming from spaces
anchored in postcolonial positionality and lingering colonial structures are actively integrated. Also,
it is a model to increase their influence in universities as spaces for knowledge production and
circulation. This way, I posit that we can sustain an equitable centre-periphery structure and
a relationship of mutual dependence by encouraging syncretism. I also appreciate the idea of
1156 H. R’BOUL

symbiosism which foregrounds interdependence where dissimilar epistemologies establish mutually

inclusive and satisfactory interaction in higher education as a site of knowledge presentation and
production. Possibilities of epistemic justice in higher education (Walker 2020) are anchored in the
critique of western episteme’ universality (Mignolo 2018). Epistemic humility and transforming
South-North relations is contingent on developing equitable epistemic governance and undermin­
ing the colonial epistemic structure (Walker and Martinez-Vargas 2020). Sustainable epistemic
governance of higher education cannot be realised without addressing the epistemic structure of
higher education directly (Campbell & Carayannis, 2013). This necessarily includes epistemic reci­
procity among all perspectives, especially the ‘Epistemologies of the South’ (de Sousa Santos 2014).
The idea of epistemological polylogue draws attention to ‘South-South inter-epistemic dialogue’
which is an often ignored dynamic in the discussion on skewed geopolitics of knowledge; it presents
South-South as a necessary process in altering knowledge production and challenging dominant
western episteme. South-south dialogue refers to ‘the active collaboration and support among
marginalized academic communities in different parts of the world including the South in the
Global North’ (R’boul in press). For instance, promoting southern knowledges can be realised
through citing each other and utilising their knowledge in university curriculum and courses
syllabus; this novel dynamic entails the possibility of promoting a nuanced decolonial option in
knowledge circulation in research and teaching in higher education. While the calls to undermine
western domination usually emphasises balanced North-South dialogue, it is equally important to
Southern contexts to capitalise on South-South inter-epistemic dialogue through mutual support;
this vision would enable southern persons to have a greater voice and influence when efforts are
combined.
South-South dialogue has not been a prominent element in knowledge production due to the
lack of epistemic self-esteem and the pressure of conforming to Northern ways of knowing. The
Subaltern is prevented from speaking for themselves about their issues, concerns and interests
because of the self-acclaimed universality of western episteme which claims that it knows their
issues, concerns and interests. The premise of South-South dialogue is certainly refreshing and
potentially useful to the global knowledge production since a wide range of Southern perspectives
has not been recognised yet or made use of in generating knowledge. In particular, the South-South
partnerships are promising because they are anchored in the postcolonial positionality of Southern
spaces. Encouraging South-South dialogue can offer alternative ways of generating and circulating
knowledge including the linguistic ascendency of English in research narratives. This framework
would promote south-south epistemic relations as a result of the active participation of perspectives
from underrepresented ontologies.
Intercultural philosophy presents a nuanced resistance in which relations within knowledge are
deemed proportionally unequal. It grapples with the dilemma of entangling epistemic dependency
through internationalisation efforts. This is not meant to support not an epistemic diversity that
entails symbolic inclusion of Southern epistemologies but an epistemic diversity that reduces
colonial differences creating a space where various knowledges are equally influential. Theorising
resistance through the same lenses that have perpetuated epistemic injustice is largely going to
reproduce the same effects of colonial dynamics.

Conclusion
This paper is not only advocating for inclusion but also transforming relations within knowledge in
higher education; it is problematic to not show the epistemological nuance of Southern epistemol­
ogies and how they can contribute to the enhancement of higher education. It argues that the
neoliberal tendencies and corporate mentality that have shaped the conceptualisation and the
enactment of internationalisation of higher education are likely to aggravate Southern universities’
epistemic dependency. The Anglo-American/Eurocentric domination of the knowledge economy
characterises the internationalisation of higher education worldwide (Díaz, 2018). That is why higher
 JOURNAL OF FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION 1157

education may be functioning as a constitutive element in the maintenance of global coloniality;

while European traditions had historically provided the models of universities, now it is ‘the United
States that is mainly leading the way in the transformation of the latter model into that of the
corporate university’ (Mignolo 2003, 101).
Considering the geopolitics and geoeconomics of knowledge (Mignolo and Walsh 2018), it is safe
to assume that it is the ‘center’ that mandates how internationalisation should be understood and
implemented. Skewed geopolitics of knowledge is informing the epistemic governance and repre­
sentation in modern higher education; it continues to favour western ways of knowing while less
popular epistemologies are marginalised. Uncritical consideration of coloniality and the geopolitics
of knowledge in higher education is likely to engender a kind of epistemic suicide on the part of
southern universities while northern ones will be even more grounded in self-ascribed superiority
and universality (Grosfoguel 2013).
While developing nations have been struggling with their postcolonial positionality and depen­
dency, failure to orient internationalisation towards epistemic diversity would further reinforce the
hegemony of western developed countries leading to ‘the neo-colonialisation of HE as inequalities
grow between the well-established, rich and powerful universities of the North and the poorer and
less-well-resourced universities of the South’ (Jiang 2010, 886). Such assumptions may suggest that
Southern universities do not reflect a sense of locality in terms of curriculum and practices since
indigenous knowledges are not actively included. It suggests the invisibility of the common repre­
sentations of non-western realities within their own spaces and discourses. That is why developing
countries might not have control over the curriculum, syllabus, quality standards and other educa­
tional elements; it is more of a passive importation of western theory of what higher education
should look like and for what purposes.
The competition for higher global status and the affiliation to a global higher education that is
structured by coloniality is likely to damage southern epistemologies’ self-worth and impede ‘the
diversity of knowledge and perspectives that are crucial to a healthy global HE system’ (Shahjahan
and Morgan 2016, 106). The question here is how internationalised higher that is anchored in the
American/Eurocentric values and structures can accommodate epistemic diversity and be open to
other knowledges, especially epistemologies of the south? (de Sousa Santos 2018). To redress the
imbalances in knowledge transfer among Southern and Northern universities (Stein, Andreotti, and
Suša 2019), internationalisation has to be based on egalitarian epistemic contributions with an
opportunity for epistemologies of the south to belong.
This paper presents intercultural philosophy as a framework that is not only characterised by
insightful understandings of how inter-epistemic dialogue may work but also calls for a multivocal and
multilateral influence among different epistemologies in higher education. It is not entirely focused on
encouraging South-North knowledge ex-change in a balanced function; it recognises that stymieing
epistemic injustices requires a multidimensional and multidirectional transfer of knowledge and, thus,
South-South partnerships are equally important in the quest for more epistemic justice (Fricker 2007,
2013). We can make use of the principles of intercultural philosophy in internationalised higher
education by doubting and relativising ‘the self-erected claim of the universality of views . . .
a dialogue may be conducted as equals between traditions of thought’ (Yousefi 2007, 121).
The global university system should not be a manifestation of an epistemic hierarchy that
continues to favour western knowledge and sensibility over non-western one. Intercultural philoso­
phy is indeed in alignment with Southern theory (Connell 2014) and the decolonisation discourse
since it also seeks to ‘rebalance the hierarchy of “powerful knowledge” in favour of indigenous
content and ways of knowing and against the domination of the western tradition’ (McGrath,
Thondhlana, and Garwe 2019, 6), e.g. decolonising the curriculum. This way, the internationalisation
of higher education may not only contribute to building more economically competitive and
politically powerful states (Ng 2012) but also participate in the decolonial projects of assuming
more epistemic justice and diversity in the world knowledge system.
1158 H. R’BOUL

Acknowledgements
Open access funding provided by Universidad Pública de Navarra.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Hamza R’Boul is a PhD candidate in the Department of Humanities and Education Sciences at the Public University of
Navarre. He is also an affiliated researcher with I-COMMUNITAS - Institute for Advanced Social Research at the same
university. His works examine the western hegemony on knowledge production and dissemination in different contexts
including intercultural communication and English language teaching. His works have appeared in Journal of
International and Intercultural communication, Journal of Language and Intercultural communication, Journal for
Multicultural Education and English Today Journal. His research interests include intercultural communication and
education, cultural politics of language teaching, postcoloniality and geopolitics of knowledge.

ORCID
Hamza R’boul http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4398-7573

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