ABSTRACT
This article examines some of the most salient issues in transnational education (TNE), those of cultural imperialism, imposition and adoption of educational and cultural discourses and power relations between importer and exporter institutions. The article suggests a new way of conceptualising relationships in TNE that could potentially expand the space for researching and analysing TNE in a way that challenges the polarities often encountered in the field (particularly between ‘Western’ and local). The purpose of the article is to address some of the themes and discourses drawn upon in current TNE scholarship and offer a novel way of looking at the intercultural dynamics inherent in a transnational educational partnership, aiming to recognise the fluidity of power relations and actors’ agency in TNE (Wang 2008; Ryan 2013b). This perspective will demonstrate the potential for re-imagining the often fairly rigidly conceptualised relationships of power between the exporter and importer institutions, not least between the ‘foreign’ teachers and ‘local’ students. It is argued that these relationships should be perceived as being more fluid with both sides using agency for their ends, minimising the need to view TNE as a form of cultural or ideological imperialism.
