Introduction

The impact of globalisation on higher education is well acknowledged, be this in relation to (supra)national policies, institutional structures and strategies, academic disciplines or individual practices (Altbach 2006; Boden and Epstein 2006; de Wit 2011). As noted by Marginson (2008: 303), “worldwide higher education is a relational environment that is simultaneously global, national and local”. Focusing on the global aspects, Marginson (ibid.) appeals to Bourdieu’s (1993) concept of field of power, highlighting how factors such as diversity in languages, academic cultures or economic capacity may constrain the global flows of people, knowledge, capital, etc. within higher education. Marginson (ibid.: 314) is optimistic about the potential of agency, in terms of imagination and will, to provoke structural change and nourish openness, meaning that “there is no closure”. In comparison, Bourdieu (e.g. Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999; Bourdieu 1999) presents a gloomier picture of global research and education, stressing how the dissemination of a few dominant scientific positions and geographies in academia is being done at the expense of the diverse national schools characteristic of intellectual life in the past. Bourdieu claims that the USA, in particular, occupies the position of a “commonplace” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999: 41), used by scholars around the world as a reference point when producing and communicating scientific knowledge. Drawing on Bourdieu’s assumptions about knowledge reproduction, this paper seeks to explore the idea of dominant academic traditions within the field of global education by focusing on power geographies within the course curricula of an international MA programme in Denmark. Our aim is twofold: to develop a method enabling us to quantify knowledge and provide a mapping of the geographies present within course curricula, and to invite lecturers to reflect on knowledge geographies in their disciplines and curricular practices, and their possible willingness to challenge the status quo. The study then can be seen in relation to growing research interest on the role of disciplines, academic staff and their epistemological stances for the internationalisation of the curriculum (Clifford 2009; Leask and Bridge 2013). According to Leask et al. (2013: 196), “Knowledge in and across the disciplines is the centre of the very concept of internationalisation of the curriculum” and academics have a pivotal role in this respect as their curricular choices frame what students learn.

Given our geographical perspective, we are concerned with the notion of spatiality, defined as “the socially produced geographical organization of society, shaping material conditions of life, power knowledge, and subjectivities” (Leitner and Sheppard 2009: 245). Best understood in the plural, spatialities can be captured by horizontal notions, such as networks and flows, as well as vertical notions, especially that of scale, which deals with stratification processes and levels of organisation, such as global, national and local (Mahon and Kiel 2009). As our focus is primarily on the “geographies of power” that produce and reproduce scientific knowledge (Berg 2004: 553), our spatial perspective is predominantly vertical, concerned with issues of hegemony, exclusion and inclusion regarding knowledge, and how these are expressed in the situated practices of university lecturers. We wish to explore both the extent to which curricular practices are closed and predicted by larger scales of power relations and the extent to which practices are opening up spaces for knowledge production and dissemination.

Knowledge, geography and language

We will first consider the production of knowledge and its relation to geography and language from a scalar perspective, giving a brief overview of global academic publishing followed by practices within specific disciplines. These trends and patterns in the production and distribution of knowledge provide a background for the situated choices of individual university teachers.

Analyses of databases such as Thomas Reuter’s Web of Knowledge and Elsevier Scopus, gaps in data notwithstanding (Montgomery 2013), indicate an overwhelming dominance of the USA and UK in academic journal publication and an increasing tendency to publish in English (Graham et al. 2011; Royal Society 2011). Nonetheless, there are changes underway in academic publishing. On the basis of peer-reviewed papers with an abstract written in English, the Royal Society (2011) observes that, while the USA is still leading the pack in terms of authorship of articles, its output has decreased, while other countries, in particular China, have increased their publication rates. Other countries where there is noticeable growth in publication outputs include South Korea, Turkey, Brazil, India and Iran. The Royal Society predicts that if publication trends continue, China will eventually overtake the USA as the world’s largest producer of research publications. Within China, however, it is acknowledged that much needs to be done to modernise and professionalise editing, reviewing and publishing processes to increase the international visibility, reputation, integrity and competitiveness of Chinese journals and thereby encourage top Chinese researchers and universities to change their current preferences regarding publication outlets and give more priority to journals based in China rather than high-impact journals published elsewhere (Ren et al. 2013). Moreover, the decisions of Chinese researchers are affected by institutional practices which link careers and promotions to publication in internationally indexed journals, and provide financial rewards for publication on the basis of impact factors (Shao and Shen 2011). The world publishing scene is also likely to change through newer developments, such as open access publishing, which may benefit scholars from countries that have not been dominant within the traditional publishing paradigm (Lillis and Curry 2010).

The inequalities that are apparent in academic publishing have been discussed from a number of perspectives, such as the political, the economic and the linguistic, all of which raise questions concerning the geography of power relations, or power geometries to use Massey’s (1993) term. If we take the language issue, the predominance of English has been approached in terms of the disadvantages experienced by non-Anglophone scholars in producing academic texts due to factors such as lack of proficiency in the language, lack of familiarity with the specific, culturally embedded norms of knowledge production or the ideologies that impact on the evaluation of these texts (Flowerdew 2008; Tietze and Dick 2009; Uzuner 2008). The spatial metaphor of centre and periphery, borrowed from Wallerstein’s (2004) political economic model of a world system, is often used to conceptualise the hegemony of Anglophone scholars and countries in relation to the non-Anglophone “margins”, where the centre regulates the nature and direction of the flows of knowledge production and dissemination (Ammon 2012; Canagarajah 2002). These central and peripheral relations have been interpreted in terms of linguistic or cultural imperialism (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999; Phillipson 2003), but such perspectives overlook the role of individual academics, including those from non-Anglophone backgrounds, in the appropriation and reproduction of such power relations through everyday practices, e.g. writing and citation practices (Gregson et al. 2003; Lillis et al. 2010). A further issue is that of change in global publication (as observed above) meaning that the assumed symbiosis between centre and Anglophone, periphery and non-Anglophone no longer holds to the same extent (Kuteeva and Mauranen 2014). Moreover, the traditional dichotomy of native versus non-native speaker is less relevant in terms of actual expertise in English. What may still hold sway are ideologies about language use, what Lillis and Curry (2010: 23) refer to as “textual ideologies—clusters of views held about the nature of language, the writer, his/her location, the status s/he is granted as a user of English (native, non-native, L1, L2 speaker etc.)”.

Turning to disciplinary fields, it is noteworthy that scholars in varying disciplines are becoming more reflective about the geopolitics of their research practices and this too is usually conceptualised through the spatial metaphor of centre and periphery. For instance, specialists in international relations from different continents have engaged with the predominant knowledge traditions within their particular regional and national fields, revealing that divergent, indigenous perspectives are more often than not benchmarked against an American theoretical core (Tickner and Wæver 2009). This knowledge bias is contested by Asian and African scholars in the field (Ofuho 2009; Wang 2009), while Western European scholars ask whether it is even possible to develop significant theory outside North America (Friedrichs and Wæver 2009). Knowledge geographies centred on the UK and USA have also been exposed in academic practices within European studies (Gregson et al. 2003), organisational studies (Meriläinen et al. 2008), human geography (Aalbers 2004), anthropology (Mathews 2010) and comparative education (Takayama 2015). That some scholars within differing disciplines are taking a more critical stance towards the geopolitics of disciplinary research paradigms and practices can be seen as a positive development for the internationalisation of the curriculum given the links between research, teaching and learning. Leask and Bridges (2013), for instance, found in case studies involving journalism and public relations at Australian universities that academic staff were aware of dominant Western knowledge geographies and were countering these through new curricular practices.

Berg (2004: 553), when considering knowledge production in his own discipline of critical geography, addresses the centre-periphery conceptualisation of scale, warning that care must be taken to “not map simple geographies of centres and margins onto very general academic spaces”. He distinguishes between geographies that are “unlimited” in scope, which means that they may function as a universal frame of reference, and geographies that are “limited” and therefore appropriate only as sites allowing for the study of particular cases or local conditions. These unlimited geographies characterise the USA and the UK, a dominance which limits the possibilities of other geographies. Berg (ibid) suggests that peer review is one of the key practices used to establish and maintain this scaling of knowledge. We would propose that the pedagogical practice of curriculum design is also crucial to the (re)production of particular knowledge geographies, perpetuating course literature that is considered “canonised” knowledge within disciplinary fields and bringing into play additional agents than researchers alone, e.g. part-time teaching staff, students and librarians.

Research design and methodology

The empirical foundation is data collected as part of a large-scale inquiry into the implications of internationalisation for social practice within five international master’s programmes at a Danish university. In terms of theory and methodology, our study has been inspired by the educational sociology of Bourdieu (1988, 1990), using mixed methods to examine the reproduction of predominant academic positions and practices within global education. The current paper draws on a sub-project that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigate the role of university lecturers in establishing, confirming and evaluating academic practice within international education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 course lecturers from four master degree programmes, following an interview guide that grouped questions in relation to activities (e.g. classroom teaching, project work, examinations). However, this guide was not rigidly adhered to in that directions taken by the informants during the interviews were pursued, and the interview technique might best be characterised as ethnographic (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007). All interviews were carried out in either Danish or English (respondent’s choice), transcribed ad verbatim and analysed with regard to contents (Kvale and Brinkmann 2009), using NVivo software. On the basis of a sub-sample (six interviews), it was possible to identify a number of significant themes, which were labelled to reflect the terminology of Bourdieu (1988, 1990). These thematic headings are asymmetries, epistemologies, field, power, practical knowledge and reproduction. These themes have been subsequently applied to the qualitative analyses of the remaining interviews. The quantitative analyses are based on a database of teacher biographies and course curricula/descriptions collected from four international master degree programmes.

For the purposes of this paper, we have selected for analysis one MA programme in Media and Journalism studies, focusing on the first year where students follow six modules. In the printed prospectus as well as website materials, the programme is labelled “international”, which is motivated by references to (1) mobility in the form of a transfer to German, Dutch or British universities during the second year of studies, (2) course contents which are presented as “global” or “international” and (3) the make-up of the student cohort. As regards the student intake, 68 were admitted in 2012, the year the project began, representing 38 countries from five continents. There were 38 students from European countries, including three from Denmark. The number of Danes is exceptionally low in the programme, which may reflect a preference among Danish students of Media and Communications for programmes taught in Danish rather than English. In the Danish-medium programmes that run parallel to the international MA, students are allowed to read scientific literature and submit written work in Danish, which some might consider an advantage. The lecturing staff consists of 12 people from various disciplinary backgrounds (political science, cultural/media studies, journalism): one programme convener (Danish), nine course lecturers, including two international members of staff, and two visiting lecturers, both residents of the USA. Of these, five lecturers and the programme convener, representing four modules, were interviewed, either in Danish or in English. The interview data presented in the analysis have been translated from Danish unless otherwise stated, i.e. original English language data will be specified as such.

The course literature from all the first-year modules amounts to a total of 193 texts marked as obligatory reading; any “supplementary” literature has not been included in this investigation. The sample includes a variety of text types: 96 journal articles, 61 book excerpts or chapters, 12 comments, 9 news items, 8 official documents or report excerpts, 3 conference papers, 3 video lectures and 1 essay. These have been considered together since the aim is to reveal general tendencies within the MA programme rather than giving exact numbers of text types for each individual course; we realise, however, that the texts can differ in length and perceived importance. For each text, we have noted the national origins and institutional affiliation of the author(s), journal/book title, publisher and language. Co-authorship was also recorded. Information concerning national origins was retrieved through search engines and professional networks (e.g. LinkedIn) to the extent that this was possible. We are aware that the categories of national origin and institutional affiliation do not reveal the dynamics of the mobility and transnationality that may characterise the careers of these authors, but their personal biographies are not our focus here. National origins inform us of linguistic and cultural background in very broad terms, and institutional affiliation captures the national academic systems in play. For both categories, a classification based on five macro-geographical zones was applied: the UK/USA, other English-speaking countries, Europe, the BRICS countries (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and miscellaneous. Clearly, such a classification is a specific representation of vertical spatiality and, thus, requires some explanation. In part, the motivation was the politics of scale reported for global academic publishing and specific disciplines (as noted above), hence the USA/UK as a discrete zone. The BRICS category was used as this has become an acknowledged means of dividing up global space; as noted by Sidaway (2012: 56), “BRICS are more than merely descriptive labels. They become means of making mental maps and claiming the future”. English-speaking countries were given their own zone because of Fitzgerald’s suggestion (2012: 174) that all Anglophone countries have an advantage because of the status of English as “the global language of scholarship and interaction”. Europe was not divided into separate zones, but any patterns in relation to specific countries were noted. Remaining countries were placed under miscellaneous; while newer spatial categories that are emerging on the basis of economic predictions, such as MIST (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey), were not applied, we are mindful that such countries are emerging on the academic publishing scene. Although a representation, the classification is not intended as a centre-periphery continuum; the dominance of the USA/UK has been assumed on the basis of current knowledge, but we would not wish to suggest that, for instance, other English-speaking countries are a priori less peripheral than Europe or the BRICS countries.

The analysis is purely quantitative, and qualitative aspects, such as the impact of spatialities on the epistemic perspectives taken by the authors within the texts, have not been considered. Hence, we do not claim that there is a necessary equivalence between authors’ geographical roots and location and their epistemological stances.

Course curricula: a quantitative typology

Beginning with language, the reading lists confirm the large-scale patterns observed in academic publishing, namely that English has become the preferred language. All texts are in English, and even if literature marked as “supplementary” reading is considered, there are no examples of multilingualism. As for geographical patterns, these findings are summarised in Tables 1 and 2, which show the percentage distribution (along with total numbers) of author national origins and institutional affiliation for each module as well as the first-year programme as a whole. The USA/UK category is clearly dominant, both within and across modules, a pattern that is especially obvious in relation to institutional affiliation. The next most prevalent category is for the most part Europe. There are some divergences from the overall pattern within specific modules with regard to national origins. For instance, in module 5 on research in Media studies, taught by a lecturer from cultural/media studies, it is Europe rather than USA/UK that predominates (44.7 vs. 34.2 %), but this is reversed when institutional affiliation is considered (50 % USA/UK, 34.1 % Europe). Module 3 on global culture and media, taught by another lecturer from cultural/media studies, has the lowest percentage of authors with origins in the USA/UK (30.9 %), but the high percentage of authors whose national origins could not be identified (23.8 %) may account for this in part; many authors in the unknown group in general have names suggesting that they come from an English-speaking background so it is possible they belong to one of the Anglophone categories. Comparing the percentage distributions of author national origins with institutional affiliation reveals a consistent pattern: the scores for the latter increase for the two categories USA/UK and other English-speaking countries at the expense of the remaining categories. Again, the effect of the lower percentage scores in the unknown category for institutional affiliation must be factored in; eight texts (3.5 %) could not be classified because they were published by intergovernmental or non-governmental organisations with no clear geographical affiliation. Nonetheless, it is also clear that some authors with national origins outside of the Anglophone countries are affiliated to institutions within these countries.

Table 1 Percentage distribution of author national origins (numbers in brackets)
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Table 2 Percentage distribution of author institutional affiliation (numbers in brackets)
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Examining the distribution of countries within the categories reveals some interesting patterns. Within the USA/UK group, American authors and institutions constitute a majority and in the group of other English-speaking countries, Canada and Australia feature more frequently than New Zealand and Ireland. More interesting is Europe, where choice of literature seems to be influenced by the fact that the lecturers are employed at a Danish university. In terms of national origins, 33.3 % of European authors can be identified as Danish, while 41.5 % of European texts are affiliated with a Danish institution. Other important knowledge producers are Sweden and Germany with scores of 18.5 and 20.4 %, respectively, for author origins, and 24.4 and 19.5 %, respectively, for institutional affiliation. In comparison, southern and central European countries are represented by only one author and/or institution. Moving on to the BRICS group, the most prevalent countries in terms of author national origins are China (seven authors) and India (six authors), with Brazil and South Africa accounting for one author each. When it comes to institutional affiliation, there is a noticeable drop in numbers and only two countries feature: three Chinese institutions and one Brazilian. All Indian and most Chinese authors are employed by American or British universities, while the South African is working for UNESCO. A similar pattern can be found in relation to our final category. Largest in terms of author national origins are South Korea (3), Israel (3) and Chile (2), while there are single authors from six other countries. As regards institutional affiliation, the universities which feature are based in Israel (3), Chile (2), Egypt (1) and Mexico (1). The authors from other countries, such as South Korea, are either employed by Anglo-American universities or by international organisations.

We conclude with a brief observation on author collaboration patterns in the data. These hint at the importance of national spaces rather than international; for instance, researchers from institutions in the USA, Sweden, Denmark or Germany collaborate with researchers from the same country. The few instances of international collaboration are restricted to Anglophone and European geographies, i.e. there are no examples of collaboration involving the BRICS and miscellaneous categories.

Lecturer reflections on curricular practices

During the interviews, the programme convener and five lecturers were asked to describe the contexts of the programme and its modules so that insights could be gained into their geographical and sociocultural frames of reference in relation to their practices, including choice of the literature. These comments enabled us to gain an understanding of lecturers’ awareness of geographies of knowledge “other” than the predominant Anglo-American and European traditions. Noteworthy was the difference between respondents who in disciplinary terms belong to a cultural/media studies tradition (the programme convener, lecturers in modules 3 and 5), and those educated within political science (lecturers in modules 1 and 2). In general, the lecturers from a political science tradition express confidence in their decision to privilege an Anglo-American/Western knowledge base, whereas respondents from cultural/media studies are more critical, proposing that alternative geographies be included. A further factor affecting lecturers’ awareness of non-Western traditions is their personal biographies. A close association with the University of Stanford might thus prompt the Danish lecturer from module 1 to privilege American literature, whereas the awareness of global knowledge resources expressed by the respondent from module 5 can be related to his situation as the only lecturer with a non-Western background. The second international member of staff (module 3) has studied and worked in non-English-speaking parts of Europe, whereas the programme convener has a background as an American studies specialist. The final two respondents are educated in Denmark, but are active participants in the international community of scholars within international relations/politics. A final influence is the status of respondents as active researchers at a “Western” university, which means that that they are likely to be affected by the trends in academic publishing discussed previously. As members of an international community of scholars, respondents will be influenced by other researchers’ assessment of particular publishers or journals as “high ranking” within their discipline. As we saw in the example of Chinese research, institutional practices may also prompt scholars to favour certain types of publications, causing a possible neglect of the scientific schools or theories emerging in alternative spaces such as China or Brazil. As one lecturer (module 1) observes: “We are not omnipresent Renaissance people who can approach and have a command of everything”.

An indication of respondents’ willingness to engage with a variety of knowledge geographies is their acknowledgement of languages other than English. For all lecturers, English is a foreign language and most have pursued education in academic cultures that relied on other media of instruction. Yet only two respondents (both international, cultural/media studies) mention the possibility of multilingualism as a resource in international education. Examining the comments on language, there is evidence of both monolingual and multilingual mindsets. The idea of English as an academic lingua franca is subscribed to, where English is described as a facilitating medium that provides access to scholarship from countries that are not English-speaking and, thus, evens out any imbalance caused by a monolingual curriculum. As the cultural/media studies lecturer from module 5 reflects, there is no reason why the global scope and scale of academia should not be reflected in the course reading:

If you are teaching in this programme and you are teaching a topic of this nature, it is your responsibility also, as a teacher, to widen out your scope of knowledge. For instance, we have the Asian Journal of Communication, we have the Chinese Journal of Communication, We have the Eastern Europe, Central Europe Journal of Communication, we have the Latin American Press Review, we have the African Journalism Studies. What that tells you is that for every region we have key [text] journals that publish in English. (English original)

Interestingly, none of the titles he mentions are included on the reading lists except, occasionally, as suggested literature. However, the quantitative analysis indicates that he does include literature from all geographical categories, often to a greater degree than his colleagues on the programme.

When prompted about the opportunities for students to draw on languages other than English, a second cultural/media studies lecturer (module 3) expresses an understanding of multilingualism as a resource to be harnessed in international education. In module 3, students are permitted to use material in other languages for particular course activities, such as group presentations or essay writing. Yet, the respondent admits, few students follow this curricular practice:

Very few of them actually did. But then [they] were using examples, though, from their own cultures perhaps. But not so much literature. There might be some/there WERE some. There was certainly German references, there were some Spanish references but I can’t remember, now… (English original)

The students’ reluctance seems to reflect the status of different languages within the programme: at course and programme level, English is taken for granted as the global medium connecting staff and students in relation to activities and literature that have to be accessible to all; at individual or group level, students can use diverse linguistic resources for course tasks that do not demand universal availability. The implied message is that work composed in languages other than English is limited in scope and scale, which might cause some students to deselect indigenous resources.

Turning now to the theme of sociocultural and geographical frames of reference, the interviews suggest that although all express an awareness of alternative geographies such as China or Brazil, respondents perceive some spaces as “global”, while others are seen in a more restricted way. Except for the programme convenor, respondents refer to unspecified notions of “Western”, giving the impression of a somewhat vague space that seems to comprise North America and Western Europe. A political scientist (module 2) reflects on the “Western” perspective presented in his course:

But it serves no independent purpose, of course, to turn [the module] into a platform for some kind of Western science in the narrow sense, but at the same time it is still the case that academic debates, on a global scale, are concentrated in what you call the West. This is something you cannot really ignore.

While this particular lecturer does not distinguish between categories such as Western, American and European, a second political scientist (also module 2) offers a more nuanced description, admitting that the product delivered in class is essentially northern European, “influenced quite a lot”, he adds, “by American tradition”. Similarly, conscious of American influences on the perspective offered in the curricula is the programme convener:

Well, to be really honest with you… Now we have quite a number of Americans who come here and teach us, so it is probably not so European, but it is really more, like, North American right?

Unlike the political scientists, who seem to accept American theory and literature as a necessary choice within their discipline, the respondents from cultural/media studies point to the existence of geographies beyond Anglo-America/the West. “Why is Chinese research not represented?”, the programme convener asks, adding that Chinese research is available in English. On a similar note, the lecturer from module 3 observes:

[U]nfortunately we have to deal with the English literature. And the… the great part of the cutting edge research is published in English and comes from there or else from the Western sphere… We have a text from different countries that are representing the Arab world, we have a China, but if I would say that I had all of the 193 countries represented, I would lie. (English original)

One explanation offered by the two cultural/media studies lecturers for their choice of Anglo-American texts is the need for common ground in a class where students originate from different parts of the world. Reuters and Rupert Murdoch are unavoidable in a course on global media, the lecturer from module 3 finds, and this is supported by the lecturer from module 5: “[I]f I am talking about mainstream media I tend to mention the CNNs, the BBCs because that is what I assume everybody knows”.

As we have seen, the broad category of “Western” can be used to place (northern) Europe together with the USA/UK, which is then presented as the single dominant location of knowledge production. There is, however, some ambivalence about the position of Europe. Concerned by the designation “from a European perspective” in the title of the MA programme, the cultural/media studies lecturer from module 5 challenges the ascription of the label “European” to course contents and literature that are essentially American and British:

We want to give the EU perspective very clearly. And what that does, as I taught them by default, the literature is significantly Anglo-American. And it is not only because it is a European perspective, it is because the discipline is Anglo-American (English original).

The programme convener makes a similar point about USA/UK dominance compromising any idea of the European. Yet his use of the term “Eurocentric” in relation to political science implies that Europe occupies a significant position, at least as perceived by some students.

Originally the programme was called’From a European perspective’, but in many fields a lot of the research is driven by […] Anglo-American publications, and there we have received criticism, for instance, from Brazilians, and a lot of others, for the way that the course is run in political science, that this is very Eurocentric. Why are none of the most distinguished Brazilian researchers represented in the curriculum, and I think that is a fair point.

The quantitative analysis of the course literature revealed that Europe, although in the shadow cast by the USA/UK, is the second largest category for both author national origins and institutional affiliation, making its visibility relatively high compared to the other non-Anglophone categories, including BRICS. This might explain student perceptions of Eurocentricity.

Interview comments suggest that student criticisms increase lecturers’ awareness of knowledge geographies outside North America/Europe. One example is the political scientist from module 2, who stresses that “when they talk about China, then we bring in some Chinese researchers”. Yet a comparison with the course reading for the session titled “China’s rise” reveals that in practice only American and Israeli authors are included in the list of obligatory reading. Equally aware of student criticisms is the lecturer from module 1, who defends his choice of theory with reference to a scaling that places spaces such as China or Latin America in the position of “limited” knowledge producers:

I privilege [the students’] own competencies in the teaching, but not, not as an approach, but more as knowledge, and that is because it is not to become some kind of multicultural theory forum where one might discuss Latin American dependencia theory in relation to American capitalism theory, or Chinese, I don’t know what theories, so therefore I try to keep it on the [level of] argumentation, on the empirical question and on privileging the knowledge they bring into this in relation to concrete conditions in their own countries or their own cultures.

Students then are invited to bring in indigenous perspectives on the general topic presented in class, but only in the form of particular case studies rather than alternative theoretical paradigms. Similarly, the lecturer in media/cultural studies from module 5 notes the need to link examples of newspapers from South Africa or South Korea to reference points such as “The Sun and The Mirror, which almost everybody knows in the UK”. What emerges from the interviews is thus a picture reminiscent of Berg’s (2004) scaling where the USA/UK and, possibly, northern Europe represent the position of “unlimited” space, whereas alternative geographies come across as “limited” in scope and application.

Discussion

In many ways, the spatial aspects of the situated practices of lecturers regarding their choice of course literature fit into the geopolitical patterns observed for global publishing and research traditions within a range of disciplines. The predominance of the USA/UK category for authors and especially institutions is undisputable, and there is evidence of a scaling of knowledge in the lecturers’ reflections on practice, where the centrality of the “West” in disciplinary traditions is noted along with the impact of the USA/UK on knowledge systems. Macro-level vertical geographies, thus, seem to be at play at the local level, but matters are not entirely clear-cut; the local context has also its own effects. Europe as a category has some importance in relation to reading materials, especially northern Europe, and, within this, Danish authors and institutions are predominant. This can be explained by the physical location of the programme and its aspired aim, at least initially, of giving a European perspective. The interplay between the global and local is also apparent in relation to language. All materials are in English, which can be explained by not only the dominance of the language in global publishing, but also the established hegemony of English in relation to internationalisation processes within Danish universities (Haberland 2014).

The data certainly point to asymmetries in the geographies of power that might be predicted by larger-scale practices at global, national, institutional or disciplinary level. In this sense, the practices of individual lecturers might be constrained or “closed”, but the question of agency remains. In spite of the tendency towards reproduction of knowledge hierarchies, a potential for change remains within the system in the sense that individuals, in their dual capacity as teachers and scholars, are free to choose literatures other than what constitutes the predominant tradition within academic publishing (Bourdieu 1988). Most likely to challenge the predominant knowledge regimes are “heretics”, a concept used by Bourdieu (ibid: 105ff.) about agents who hold peripheral positions within the academic system of reproduction, from which they challenge institutional and disciplinary routines. For Bourdieu (ibid: 106, 108), such heretics are frequently found within “newer” disciplines, such as, at that time, ethnology, but he also mentions international experience, citing Claude Lévi-Strauss as an example. So have we any indication of “heretical” behaviour in the data? Certainly, the lecturers and the programme convenor from a cultural/media studies background take a more critical stance than that of their colleagues regarding the acknowledged inequalities within knowledge production. Numbers, however, are small so the significance of discipline per se cannot be determined with any certainty. The two lecturers from cultural/media studies are also relatively junior, international members of staff, so these factors may impact on their views and encourage a more “heretical” perspective. Of relevance too may be understandings of what an international programme is intended to achieve. The lecturers from cultural/media studies seem to be influenced by what Stier (2004: 94) refers to as “educationalism”, an ideology of internationalisation which involves “new perspectives and knowledge” and training of “intercultural competence”. Their concerns with the lack of a European dimension in the programme, their use of worldwide examples and their practical approach to multilingualism exemplify this ideological approach, although it is variably reflected in their choice of course literature. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that regardless of critical and ideological stances which might suggest a potential for “heretical” practices, Berg’s (2004) notion of unlimited and limited geographies still applies. Even when multilingual or multicultural dimensions are included, these focus on specific tasks or relate to examples and not overarching theories, which are anchored in the dominant Anglo-American traditions. Not to be overlooked, however, is the opportunity for students to take on the role of “heretic”. The data indicate that students were instrumental in making lecturers reflect on their practices by demanding wider approaches. While there could be an element of ethnocentrism here in that the perspective sought seems to be that of their own country, e.g. Brazilian students wishing to read texts by Brazilian academics, such student “heretics” are potentially significant catalysts for change.

Conclusion

Through an examination of curricular practice within one international MA programme, we have demonstrated how certain knowledge geographies are allowed to dominate, while others seem to be neglected. As stated initially, this empirical work had two purposes. First, we developed for the quantitative analysis a relatively simple methodological tool that enabled us to map knowledge geographies within individual courses, allowing for an identification of geographical biases. Particularly in combination with a contents analysis, this tool can be employed to document the existence of knowledge geographies as well as domination by particular academic traditions and schools. Second, interviews were used to allow academics to reflect on their curricular practice. Interestingly enough, respondents were generally aware of different traditions as well as their preference for North American and European sources. At the same time, we saw that the lecturers’ perception of knowledge geography did not always match the findings of the quantitative analysis, which underlines the importance of awareness raising among academic staff as argued by Leask and Bridge (2013).

As the study reported here deals with a single international programme, generalised conclusions cannot be drawn. Nonetheless, the implications of our findings in terms of the closing and opening up of knowledge spaces should be considered. One scenario, that of the closed circle, is that lecturers will continue as usual, reproducing established hegemonic patterns: an “unlimited” use of the literature of the UK/USA, and to some extent Europe, and a “limited” use of materials from the BRICS countries and other parts of the world. Another scenario is that continued pressures from below, e.g. from critical lecturers and students, might encourage an opening up of curricular practices to greater diversity and, more significantly, a change in how this diversity is applied in practice, i.e. a change in the “limits” placed on knowledge(s). In this respect, quantitative studies of the sort pursued here provide an important point of departure, drawing individual lecturers’ attention to the balance between different knowledge geographies within single courses as well as international programmes in general.