Knowledge Sovereignty and Decolonial Paradigms in Transnational Pedagogy and Curricular Polycentrism

This chapter reconceptualises internationalization of higher education as a stratified assemblage of power, knowledge, and mobility rather than a benign cosmopolitan add-on. It synthesises postcolonial and decolonial paradigms, world-systems political economy, intersectional capabilities, and critical pedagogy to show how rankings, visa architectures, digital platforms, and monocultural canons reproduce coloniality and epistemic exclusion. Against this diagnosis, the chapter advances a compact normative schema grounded in epistemic pluralism, contextual relevance, relational reciprocity, accessibility, and planetary responsibility, translating these into a multi-level design grammar for curriculum, sociotechnical infrastructures, institutional governance, and transnational alliances oriented toward pluriversal, justice-centred knowledge ecologies.