After the ink dries: doing collaborative international work in higher education

Abstract

This article offers a contribution to the limited literature on internationalization as academic work. Using narrative inquiry incorporating a mode of research known as ‘car time’, the authors generate narratives of practice to analyse the day‐to‐day work involved in their international university collaboration. The article foreshadows the dialogic opportunities available to academic staff engaged in collaborative international work. This trust‐based approach to internationalization involves building and sustaining inter‐ and intra‐institutional relationships, catalytic events which ‘make things happen’, and learning from each other via common and divergent institutional practices. While cognizant of demands for increased regulation, the article argues for a broader consideration of the learning to be gained from such partnerships. Three things keep this partnership going long after the ink had dried on official agreements between institutions: a personal click, shared professional interests and a framework for institutional agreements and structures.

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Charlie Webber for prompting us to ‘talk to each other’, and the Canadian High Commission, Faculty Enrichment Program and the University of Calgary International Office for financial assistance which supported the collaboration.