We live in an increasingly interconnected globalised world, with super-diversity leading not just to increased numbers and patterns of migration but also to new forms of space, borders hierarchies and distribributions of power (Vertovec 2007, 2017). Institutes of higher education are equally being transformed. In the highly competitive global academic marketplace which is dominated by league tables, universities are pitting themselves against each other to attract lucrative international student fees, research grants and stellar academics. However, we can also see them broaden their remit as a social good, including community engagement and societal transformation in addition to the more traditional pillars of teaching and research in their strategic plans; in so doing, supporting sustainable, inclusive and peaceful societies (Boni and Walker 2013).
In this conference, drawing on insider-practitioner work (Crosbie 2014, 2017, Crosbie and Daniel 2019), I discuss the co-creation of cosmopolitan capabilities for language and intercultural learning in a range of higher education scenarios, eschewing narrow skills-based approaches in favour of ones that encompass values, visions, voice and agency as participants realise they have choices to make about the beings and doings they wish to engage in. This approach draws on the normative work of the Capability Approach, developed by Sen (1999) and Nussbaum (2000), who make philosophical inquiries on quality of life issues underpinned by social justice.
I draw a narrative arc which moves from nascent questions about cosmopolitan responsibility and intercultural dialogue in an ESOL classroom, through the development of the university of sanctuary movement, to a unique arts-based sanctuary storytelling project that brings volunteer university staff and students in direct contact with asylum seekers and refugees. These disparate yet related tales lead to a consideration of concepts such as liminality, hospitality and reciprocity; in so doing, carving out a counter ideology to the culture of competitiveness that threatens to overshadow academia in these super-diverse times.
Narrative insights include an appreciation of learning and human development as an end as well as a means; that reimagines cosmopolitan values, including hospitality, for our disruptive times; that valorises unique lives over stereotypes and labels; that sees liminality as a dynamic, creative space; and that prompts us to critically evaluate choices, actions and encounters with cultural others as we negotiate our “complex, composite, layered and unequal” (Sigona, cited Vertovec 2017) social environment.