World's Education Journal by CISC

The convergence of epistemologies: International scholars and the discourse of international scholarship

Vongrathayuth Hingphith

University of Minnesota

Qianzi Cong

University of Minnesota

Baiwen Peng

University of Minnesota

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/wejc.v1i1.7670

Keywords: Epistemological convergence, Knowledge production, Internationalization of higher education, International scholar

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Abstract

The inaugural volume of the World’s Education Journal by CEHD International Student Community (WEJC) is grounded in the metaphor of a river, where multiple epistemological currents converge without erasing their origins. Drawing on the metaphor of a river, this volume brings together scholars whose intellectual trajectories converge across disciplines, geographies, and epistemological traditions. Like rivers entering from different points, contributors engage shared currents of inquiry while remaining grounded in distinct cultural, historical, and scholarly lineages. Situated within a critique of Western-centric knowledge production systems and academic capitalism, the editorial piece interrogates how epistemological commodification enables institutions to benefit from global intellectual labor while retaining ownership and authority over knowledge. This issue centers on the intellectual contributions of international students as cross-cultural and cross-epistemological knowledge producers. Acknowledging international scholar status as both temporary and structurally essential to contemporary higher education, the three editors—each affiliated with CIDE and identifying as international scholars—position this journal itself as a co-created project born from shared precarity, mobility, and scholarly collaboration.