Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes Swedish Humanities scholars’ strategies towards the demands of ‘internationalization’. Through analysis of 30 in depth-interviews we discuss how internationalization is explained as overcoming formal structures of academic capitalism or breaking with Humanities’ old traditions.

Paper long abstract:

The aim with this paper is to analyze how 30 Swedish Humanities scholars depicted their different ways of responding to the growing expectations of becoming more ‘internationalized’. Internationalization has been articulated in official government reports and in research policy bills as closely connected to innovation, economic growth and development, and regarded as a way to ascertain Sweden’s success on the international area. English as a working language, physical mobility, international networking in projects, publishing in English etc. are regarded as almost an obligation and the Humanities are expected to implement internationalization in much the same way as medicine, technology and science. In our ethnographic study, 30 in depth-interviews were subject to cultural analysis in order to problematize how scholars from the disciplines of history, Romance languages and philosophy at Swedish universities responded to the demands of internationalization. Some regarded their reluctance to use English as a resistance against the formal rules imposed by funding bodies and authorities (and thus as a resistance to “system” or academic capitalism). For others, embracing the demands of internationalization challenged the more nationally bound traditions of the Humanities and thus had an emancipatory potential. The language scholars criticized the domination of English and claimed that “internationalization” should be just as much about other languages. Some historians claimed that writing books or publishing in Swedish is of great scientific importance while other historians, as well as many philosophers, claimed that networking and publishing in English could successfully challenge the old rules of nationally bound traditions of the Humanities.