This volume is about higher education in the context of globalization. Universities are rapidly becoming internationalized, and far from being ‘just’ a question of the English language replacing local languages as the working language, this process has introduced a whole range of sociolinguistic and cultural issues that universities are now trying to come to grips with. Transnational mobility, communication and exchange have increased to the point where the students, faculty and staff of many institutions make up an academic microcosm of the world, and choices involving multilingual and multicultural processes and resources have to be made which will affect every level and type of academic, social and administrative practice.

The aim of the research represented by this anthology is to develop a new theoretical understanding of the internationalization process, in which – inspired by Bourdieu – we see the university as a multilingual and multicultural market place where linguistic and cultural resources form the capital with which power and influence are negotiated, and where academic and social practices are choices (‘moves’) within a linguistic and political field viewed as a structured space of (often hierarchical) positions.

The editors and authors of this interdisciplinary collection of papers are all members of the international research network for the study of Cultural and Linguistic Practices in the International University (CALPIU). This network, funded by the Danish Research Council for Culture and Communication, currently has some 50 members from 12 countries both within the EU and beyond.

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