Transnational intellectual engagement via cocoon communities : inter-university videoconferencing for local and international students

Australia's universities have students and staff from more than a hundred ethnic backgrounds, many of whom come from a variety of educational cultures and have bi- or multilingual capabilities. At the beginning of our research collaboration reported in this chapter we were concerned about university practices of community which focus on celebrating diversity. There is a preoccupation with the obstacles said to be posed by diverse strangers to creating an integrated, sociable community. We agreed to not being fans of the typical Diversity Week conducted by universities as a valuable or much valued practice of community. As we started to work on this project we confided in one another that we were equally perturbed by the fixation by universities on practices of community that have staff and students participating in everything from African drumming to Chinese lion dancing. If this is all that is meant by the much touted claims that the local cannot escape being transformed by the global, we are not at all enthused. To us, such practices of community minimise opportunities for a stronger intellectual focus on the mission of universities in bringing a diversity of knowledge to life. At the very least, Diversity Week and subjects devoted to diversity and cosmopolitanism would be of more value if they promoted intellectual respect through the inclusion of non-Western theories and languages.