David studied anthropology, politics, international relations and human rights (pretty much in that order), with an emphasis on US engagement with international criminal law.
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Recently, RMIT hosted the Global Dialogue Series, including a keynote speaker, Martha Johnson from the University of Minnesota, who represents the "GPS Alliance", or "Global Programs and Strategy Alliance." When researching the University of Minnesota, I was surprised to discover not just that UoM is a very highly ranked and reputable university (46th outright in THE), but that this Midwest university is highly internationalised... or should I say, "globalised?" The GPS Alliance addresses the difference between the two concepts on their website.
"We use the world "global" to emphasise the interconnectedness of people and issues in the global community and new forms of collaboration and partnership beyond national identity. When political boundaries and national identity are of the essence, we use the word "international".
This succinct explanation (I couldn't have said it better myself) caused me to reflect on our work here at RMIT and the relative importance, or lack thereof, of international borders.
I spent my formative years in Papua New Guinea, an independent country just one month younger than myself (you're welcome to do the math). PNG is about as confusing a place as you could come across - a wild topography populated with some 800 distinct language groups and perhaps one-fifth of the world's "cultural content," - an assertion that would invoke apoplexy amongst anthropologists - but I'll say it anyway.
It seemed crazy to me that the colonial project would bequeath the moniker of "nation-state" to such an amorphous group of people and that colonial operatives would have the audacity to draw a straight line on a map separating what is now modern day PNG from Indonesia. The locals who live along this border for years picked up the wooden "border posts" and moved them back and forth, imagining themselves to be shifting their village from Indonesia to PNG, only to be castigated by authorities who promptly "shift" them back to Indonesia again. It's this imagination of where the locals think they live that belies the point I wish to make.
It was Benedict Anderson, himself a global citizen, born in China to an Irish father and English mother, and current Emeritus Professor at Cornell University, who coined the term "imagined communities." His seminal text, by the same name, makes the simple point that "nation-states," as the constituent units of the international system, are "imagined" - human creations that provides us with limited insights into how individuals form identity. Borders cross-cut communities of interest (at times leading to conflict), contain unfathomable human diversity (at times leading to conflict), yet have become sacrosanct. To my mind, the post-1945 modern project may be described as the ongoing yet futile effort to see a nation of people feel an equivalence with their inherited political borders - the coming together of the "nation" and the "state." (Team Australia?)
Does RMIT need to recognise international borders in pursuit of our work? Well, yes. We work directly with the governments, both Australian and overseas, in order to achieve our ends. We work through multilateral organisation, reference bilateral agreements and have our passport stamped as we traverse international boundaries.
In contrast, our Strategic Plan references our "global" perspective. Our research is trans-boundary. Water Management (something we are good at) with respect to the Mekong River necessitates a multilateral approach. The river passes through six countries and proposals to improve its quality require a multilateral approach. Education and training is also increasingly trans-boundary. Presently, Austrade is developing a project whereby Australian institutions train Indian workers to the standards expected in Saudi Arabia, where millions of foreign workers are employed.
These are just two examples of how RMIT operates in an increasingly globalised but not quite borderless world. I suggest that RMIT has already adopted the distinction between "international" and "global" as so neatly articulated by the University of Minnesota. "International" approaches are a means to an end. A global perspective, however, allows us to transverse boundaries in search of solutions. The boundaries are, after all, imaginary. Just ask the locals in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea... or are they in Indonesia?
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