Intercultural Postgraduate Supervision

The impact of globalisation and aggressive marketing by universities has increased the flow of international or culturally diverse students enrolling in postgraduate research degree programs outside their own countries. As access to postgraduate education widens, more local culturally diverse and Indigenous students are also enrolling in higher degree studies. As a result, significantly more academics now engage in intercultural supervision or supervising students who are culturally different to themselves.

This book argues that empowering intercultural supervision can result from more nuanced, critical and theoretically-based understandings of time, place and knowledge. It shows how a range of ‘Southern’ theories (including postcolonial, Indigenous, feminist, social and cultural geography theories) about history, geography and knowledge can offer fresh insights into intercultural supervision.

The author suggests that by using the conceptual tools offered by these Southern theories, the more complex but potentially rich aspects of intercultural supervision can be better understood and grappled with. In particular, these theories enable us to challenge assumptions about the universality and timelessness of Northern knowledge, and to create space for the recovery and further development of Southern, Eastern and Indigenous knowledges within intercultural supervision.

This book will be of value to academic supervisors and postgraduate students, especially those engaged in intercultural supervision, as well as researchers and scholars in the field of higher education.

Catherine Manathunga is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.