In this latest episode of the Think Education podcast, Chris and Judith talked to Rachelle Viader Knowles, Head of International for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Manchester School of Art about her journey through international higher education and her work in trans local dialogues.

Rachelle talked us through her international background from Mauritius, to Wales, to Canada and to the UK.  Her undergraduate experience in interactive arts in the countryside outside Newport that focused on experimental thinking, interdisciplinarity and collaboration – all strands that have continued throughout her career.  She became interested in cross-cultural conversations while studying in Canada and that became a further launching pad for her professional interests and career developments.

The power of networks and collaboration has played a key role in Rachelle’s journey, and she stresses how important this is to develop and support.  This has been of particular relevance in the COIL projects currently underway – including those around ethical ways of working in this space.

Rachelle and Chris talked about their experience of teaching during their respective degrees and how this helped to set them on their path to academia, in addition of course to providing financial support during studies.  This is of particular relevance to all of us involved in international student recruitment and the opportunities available.

We talked about creative research and how we view research from a process and output perspective.  We talked about the origin and ownership of knowledge and how this perspective changes our understanding of research as a discipline and how this can better be connected to internationalisation.  Rachelle gave examples of her work in Regina, Saskatchewan and her exposure to indigenous methodologies.  One such was a project with Judy Anderson, now a Professor at the University of Calgary, where Rachelle was taught how to do indigenous beading and Rachelle taught Judy how to do digital editing to create a conversation between somebody of indigenous heritage and somebody of white settle heritage about their experiences with digital learning.

Rachelle talked about internationalisation at home and the importance this has within institutions and for students.  She argues that this sort of practice should be sector wide and supported in order to move away from an island to global mentality.

Be together when you can but use technologies when you can’t.

#translocaldialogues #collaboration #networks #creativeresearch #internationalhighereducation #firstnations #indigenousmethodolgies #practicebasedresarch #COIL stephaniemartin