Photo: MCC
Lili Anna Mezző
29/07/2024 19:41
The following interview was created to illustrate a more well-rounded picture about global higher education and advocates for a critical rethinking of the Asia's place in knowledge production and educational practices, countering the prevailing dominance of Western epistemologies.
Dr. Zhang is a lecturer at the Monash University in Australia, advocating for cultivating a more pluralistic and equitable academic environment, by incorporating Asian methodologies, philosophies and educators.
Can you explain what inspired you to focus on the challenges faced by Asian graduate students studying abroad?
I was an international student like many others, I grew up and completed my education in China. Then I joined the Monah University, that’s why being an international student is part of my identity, leading me to become an academic in the field of education right now.
Dr. Zhang expressed his concerns about the countless challenges that overseas students face. Carrying home issues but investigated in the West.
A new generation of PHD students is being emerged. They have a more diverse background. We are / we have been naturally guided to use the Western theory to investigate our home issues. At that time nobody challenged this problem, the Western theory became the so- called default theory and it is ever since powerful, we can’t deny that. This became relevant for me in my second year of PHD study, because I proceeded the data collection in China, interviewed policy makers and did a lot of document analyses. These documents are written in Chinese context, the interviewees spoke from their own perspective, certainly. However, when I started to use the framework to examine or analyze data I faced a problem, because if we apply the Western theory to analyze Chinese policy, it is problematic. It didn’t formulate in a “scientific way”.
How did you navigate the complexities of not becoming Asia-centric while attempting to de-imperialize and decolonize your methodologies?
Because of my working experience, my cultural and educational background, I know that the policies make sense in the Chinese context. It is less problematic, because they have deep cultural, political, economic, even some social and historical reasons to make policies. Therefore, I can't persuade myself to give up that kind of local values, local context to mention the West. I was stuck because I couldn’t apply the Western theories to analyze my Chinese data.
A lot to be thanked to Dr. Zhang’s well-known PHD supervisor, Jane Kingway to help managing this obstacle. Being a purely successful Western professor, nobody challenged her authorities in this area. Building up Western values, frameworks or philosophies to look at educational issues was initially very successful.
Eventually, she also faced a big problem, but from a different perspective. When she applied these views outside of Australia, especially in Hong Kong and Singapore, her system collapsed. Because although, there are other elite schools in the old colonial system, what she observed, the experiences of the students and teachers who lived there, she couldn’t understand. However, during the conversations she had with the teacher and students, she came to the realization that her model works for them perfectly, or even better than in Australia.
The Western theory can’t work when applied to Asian context. That is when she found an ancient method book, written by a Taiwanese scholar, Chen Kuan-hsing, which really provided a new research direction in my nation. I found a new way to break through my PHD study, using Asia as a method, modifying the Western theory and using it in Chinese context. Although I feel like Asia as method is definitely not the end of my academic career. I still think maybe they have better options, ideas, concepts or theories than Asia as method in the future. I can feel that. But at this moment, according to my experiences and my understanding of this issue, I still feel like I couldn’t figure out another better way.
What potential does the Asia as method hold for reshaping the future of higher education? What potential does it have for Europe and for Hungary?
It might seem that Asia as method focuses solely on Asia, but academically, this is not a constraint. In fact, limiting our thinking to Asia as a method can be risky. Moreover, defining what constitutes "Asia" itself poses a challenge.
Asia actually is a Western term and it's not being part of their identity, cultural identity, at least. We offer our research, it's because of the dominance of West as a method, Western theory, philosophy, or research paradigms in the global world and as we see it has caused some problems as well. People started questioning this so-called default method.
Before Asia as method, lots of researches have already criticized this kind of Western dominated way of thinking, hence this issue is not new. It is called the decolonization of areas of studies.
Many people mistakenly view "Asia as a method" as an anti-West approach. In reality, it's simply one part of a larger puzzle.
These pieces of puzzle we call is knowledge production from the history and the present. This is one just narrative to talk about the world. If you change the location, you change the terms. Asia's method is to provide a way of thinking. A new research advantage, like a focus on the local tradition, the history, the wisdom, the philosophy. If some knowledge only works in a limited space, I think this cannot be called a knowledge. If you call it knowledge or wisdom, this should be shared by the human beings. This is true for Asia's method as well.
We have diverse sources of knowledge production, and each should be equally valued. In fact, local sources can be especially crucial when addressing issues that arise within those specific contexts.
What are the steps of the policy implementation from theoretical framework into practical policies? If you would like to use the Asia as method. How do you start to implement it in practice?
Asia as method has been firstly raised by Chen Kuan-hsing in 2010 in a book. In 2015, we firstly used Asia as method in education. So now it has been 10 years already for Asia as method in education. And I can say that I'm quite excited to say that actually this idea has been widely used globally. For example, we got colleagues from South Korea. They're doing South Korea as a method, building up their academic network, organizing annual conferences as well.
Asia's method is probably a new way of thinking and new perspectives for the knowledge production. It focuses on how different methods can be learned by different countries, exploring the opportunities based on their local history and tradition.
The Western-centered paradigms are deeply entrenched in the global academia. Do you expect any kind of skepticism from the Western side? Or have you ever experienced a kind of skepticism from the Western side, since they have to open up to new ideas? And how do you make them more open-minded about this?
The answer is yes. The skepticism or critique about Asia's method was there since the very beginning. I received discrimination when I used Asia's method in my study. I also got the critique that we don’t need Asia's method. We already have other research of decolonization and it is just an attempt to use one umbrella term to cover everybody's effort. Certainly, this is kind of academic debate or some attack.
Besides the critiques, Dr. Zhang notes that they receive substantial support as well. Their ideas are successfully presented in conferences by the Australian Research Association, gaining significant encouragement. They are also recommended to present their ideas in overseas conferences, in the UK and US.
Because the Eurocentrism or westernization is not only shown in the education research or academic areas. It's a very powerful and systematic way of doing things. But at the same time, new challenges are emerging, and people realize that besides the Western method we still have other options. When you apply Western theories into the local context, sometimes it doesn't work in their country.
I think the idea of ancient methods just comes in the right time. It seems like ancient methods also offer new options for them. Some of the Western scholars admit the weakness of Western theories. So that means with ancient methods, everyone contributes to these areas from different perspectives.
What is your opinion on what the Learning Research Institute is doing in the Learning from Asia project?
When I first got to know about this Learning from Asia project, I was very excited, because I spent nearly 10 years to develop Asia as method in Australia, or the neighboring countries. Although I got support and opportunity to talk about it, sometimes I really wanted to give up this. I tried to put Asia's method in my publications. But the reviewer feedback was always like, we don't need Asia as method.
Dr. Zhang faced a dilemma between publishing his existing works and continuing his research on "Asia as a method."
The global academic community did not accept these ideas, or was not ready to accept it. When Professor Gábor mentioned that Hungary, a European country wants to learn from Asia, I thought that is so brave. How humble is the MCC Learning Institute that they are taking these big steps trying to give up West as method and use Asia. I'm happy to do that, because I want to see what happens. I want to participate in the process of this learning.
I think Hungary at this moment, have the political, economic, even the cultural or geographical convenience to launch this project in a good context. I think what MCC Learning from Asia Project needs to do is to learn Asia's countries, the adaptation of Western theories in their practices. And no matter you succeed or fail, Hungary can learn from it.
And it appears to me that in the West, self-reflection has a kind of secondary role, can we say that? And it is totally different than in Asia. Do you agree with that? And if so, how do you manage this kind of binary approach?
I think self-reflection is not unique to Asia or to China, for example. I think self-reflection also belongs to the West, but we need to know whom we call the West. I think it's rooted in the Western culture. We have different historical and cultural origins. But self- reflection, according to my limited knowledge about different civilizations, I think it's been widely used in Asia and India, China certainly, or some of the native groups, Australian native groups, and for America.
Meditation and self-reflection always happens. This is the general knowledge. This is the way to communicate with heaven, or with God, or with the spirit. I can't say this belongs to someone, but certainly it's very important. Maybe, I think so far, the West, what we understand the West is kind of the modernized West. It's globalized, or it's kind of the Americanized West, or industrialized West. It's an economic-driven or profit- driven West. If this is the West, maybe yes. Maybe this is, I think the self-reflection is not the primary, because people are seeking to pursue the profit, and get some kind of material enjoyment.
So maybe they are not bothered to self-reflect. But if this is the case, I can see this phenomenon in China as well. People are rushing to make money, and they never stop. But it's significantly important to generate knowledge and wisdom, no matter from which civilization.
Let's talk about your upcoming book together, Monash University and the Learning Research Institute. What kind of dilemmas do the authors' address, and what's your opinion about the Authors from Hungary, now that you had individual meetings as well, and how did you advise them to solve their issues or work further?
I think maybe this is version two of the ancient method in education study. If the version one has come from our book in 2015, this will be version two, or generation two. I feel super excited about it, and I tidily put my time and energy on it.I want to support our PhD students make good success in this project, from Hungary and from Monash as well. Most of them are international students.
Today, I was asked as editor or the mentor, what's your expectations about our chapters? The first book, version one, 10 years ago, it's not perfect. There were a lot of problems, because of my limitation of time and my understanding about ancient methods at that time, a lot of factors that limited our exploration about ancient methods. The second book, finally we have the good opportunity and resource and the energy and the ability to doing a really innovative, true ancient method in education study book. This is going to be a revolution, I think.
I have put a lot of expectation on it. One critical question that students asked is, what is the weaknesses of the ancient method? If there's a weakness, as I said in the very beginning, is that the ancient as a method is not the final stop or our ultimate goal. I believe we can do better in the future. What I want them to say is, don't let ancient method, the term, the label, to limit your imagination. If you know how to do ancient method, without this term, your research is still called ancient method. This is also the metaphor from the Buddhist tradition.
The idea is that traditional methods (whether from Asia or elsewhere) are valuable as means to an end but should not be rigidly adhered to once they have served their purpose. In research and intellectual exploration, the approach emphasizes starting from cultural traditions to develop new theories and perspectives. Moving beyond specific methodologies or labels, aiming for a future where the focus is on valuing traditions and cultures equally without clinging to specific methods or terminologies.
The Author is a Mentee in the MCC Learning Research Institute’s Learning from Asia Project