The Climax of Globalisation:

This article examines the contradictory trends in globalisation andtheir impact on internationalisation in higher education. It arguesthat the rapid global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, that hasposed one of the most formidable challenges to globalisation andinternationalisation, was made possible precisely because of the advancedstage of development that globalisation had reached. The lockdownsand near total restriction on international mobility, closure of schoolsand universities, and other effects and responses to the pandemicadd to the restrictions on internationalisation imposed by conservativeregimes in the North and the South. The article focuses on threeissues: i) the contradictory trends in globalisation as relevant to internationalisation;ii) Trumpism and deepening neoliberal globalisation; andiii) networks and institutions in promoting internationalisation in theGlobal South. It argues that Trumpism and Brexit involve a renegotiationof the terms of engagement and attempts to reposition and re-assert thehegemony of certain players in the global economy. The article arguesthat, although certain aspects of internationalisation in higher educationhave become more difficult to preserve, it has deepened in other ways andtaken new forms, thanks to the extensive use of new communicationsmedia and technologies. Internationalisation has not always been, andwill not always be, ‘intentional’, but it can be harnessed to being about amore equitable form of globalisation.