INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION: THE UNIVERSITY AS A TERRITORY OF LIFE

Abstract

The internationalization of Higher Education, centered on rankings and external evaluation indices, has contributed to the idea of the deterritorialization of the university, obscuring and rendering local knowledge invisible. The aim of this article is to reflect on the internationalization of Higher Education from the perspective that understands the university as a territory of life, and thus internationalization as an instrument for the co-production of marginalized knowledge. To this end, the decolonial perspective provides the theoretical and methodological foundations for the reflections. The path taken initially discusses the genesis of the university with the aim of understanding how internationalization contributes to the idea of the university’s deterritorialization. The second section explores the understanding of the university as a territory of life and helps to perceive that internationalization can be an instrument for the co-production and inclusion of knowledge that inhabits ontological and epistemological borders, frequently rendered invisible and denied by an internationalization focused on the standardization and homogenization of knowledge production. In this sense, internationalization can broaden epistemes and introduce concrete possibilities for dialogue among knowledges and the co-production of knowledge.