Introduction

There is growing pressure to advance the internationalization of higher education in Brazil, both at postgraduate and undergraduate levels, with a focus in English and Northern countries, inspired by an exclusionary colonial logic. This proposition has guided the lines of funding bodies and permeates the institutional policies of public universities that are part of asymmetrical relationships with universities located in countries in the Global North and are encouraged to appropriate a Eurocentric culture with a view to obtaining technological, scientific and other developments (^{Macedo, 2020}).

The internationalization strategies of Brazilian universities, especially those that joined the CAPES PrInt Program, prioritize the internationalization of the curriculum through training abroad. In research, they excel at creating international collaboration networks; in extension, they place priority actions in the dimension of interculturality via events and diffusion of languages and cultures; and, in management, they focus on the search for resources for infrastructure and international visibility, linguistic training for students and employees and a monitoring system with goals and indicators for the internationalization process. These Higher Education Institutions seek to carry out comprehensive internationalization through the construction of knowledge based on the interaction between Brazilians and foreigners and through participatory management in internationalization policy (^{Morosini et al., 2023}).

For the university community and society in general, the meanings of internationalization are constructed through its dissemination in digital media, which contribute to creating and strengthening in people’s imagination the meanings for adhering to internationalization processes. These media, according to ^{Mulik (2019}), highlight interculturality, but disregard how complex the relationship between different cultures is; Furthermore, they highlight the rankings to illustrate the competitiveness between institutions from the neoliberal perspective of student as customer and education as a commodity and end up strengthening unequal relationships between universities, ignoring the context of each institution and also overvaluing the English language, reinforcing the linguistic hegemony of countries in the global north.

^{Leal and Moraes (2018}) argue that a critical internationalization of higher education resists Eurocentric and neocolonial trends in higher education. In this sense, instead of a neoliberal rationality of globalization that hierarchizes knowledge from the West and ignores differences by valuing a dominant culture, we seek to decolonize and give voice to silenced knowledge and histories and subordinated languages, as well as rejecting ready-made models of internationalization. In the context of the internationalization of higher education, when “cooperative, diversified and horizontal international relations, with social inclusion” are established, it helps universities to interact under “more egalitarian conditions, supporting the formation of political subjects, prepared to get involved critically in the complexity of the globalized world, sensitive to issues relevant to their society and engaged with the historical destiny of their people” (Leal; Moraes, 2018, p. 19) .

Considering the above, the objective of this article is to discuss internationalization from a decolonial and critical perspective, analyzing the actions of the State University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UEMS) to promote internationalization and inclusion in the context of Latin America. Using a documentary methodology¹, the research unfolds on the data present in the Notices for financing International Mobility launched by UEMS with internal resources and on the UEMS Acolhe Program, which promotes extension and reception actions for migrants.

In addition to this introduction, the article presents four other sections. In the second section we discuss the decolonial and critical perspective for internationalization, in the third we discuss inclusion and exclusion in global terms. The fourth section presents an analysis based on data extracted from institutional documents (Notices, Regulations, Notice Results, Internal Reports, Website) that highlight UEMS’s actions towards decolonial internationalization, through mobility notices focused on Latin America and a Reception Program for Migrants. The last section presents the article’s final considerations and, finally, the references are listed.

Internationalization of Higher Education from a decolonial and critical perspective

The internationalization of higher education is motivated by two visions, a strategic vision, in which the institution operates in the international market and offers programs in other countries, and a humanistic vision, in which the institution seeks to build an international mentality in its academic community with a view to promote exchanges of knowledge and experiences with institutions in other countries. ^{Muckenberger and Miura (2015}) highlight that there are elements of both visions coexisting in the internationalization processes of universities that embark on the process of internationalizing for political, economic, sociocultural, academic (teaching, research, extension) and commercial (status and recognition) reasons.

It is also important to highlight the neoliberal school of thought present in the narratives of international organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which stimulate a specific model of university which is market-oriented and which internationalizes based on mobility policies and international cooperation agreements that value international experiences in the South-North direction and scientific production and innovation centered in the global North (Parra-Sandoval, 2022).

In general, the internationalization of higher education has been driven by the concepts and guidelines of three organizations that constitute the main sources for ideas and practices of university internationalization around the world: Association of International Educators (NAFSA); the International Association of Universities (IAU); and the European Association for International Education (EAIE). These organizations, when guiding internationalization practices in higher education, emphasize the presence of international students at the university, academic mobility and curricular change. However, “little attention is paid to the ethics of international engagement, particularly in unequal power relations” (^{Buckner; Stein, 2020}).

^{Buckner and Stein (2020}, p. 156) argue that in NAFSA’s measurement of internationalization, for example, “there is no discussion of global inequality or power imbalances in any of the recommended indicators of internationalization - internationalization is never discussed as a way to help the student understand or rethink their place in the world”. According to the authors, EAIE, when listing internationalization objectives, for example, “frames internationalization in terms of the competitive advantages it will confer on local students, communities and institutions, namely in terms of improving their reputation or economic position”.

Although it is important, other possibilities are left aside for this organization, such as, for example, the fact that internationalization is a mechanism for “reciprocal or transformative results, which challenges and/or expands students’ world views, giving new meaning to the dynamics of power intercultural relations, or increasing epistemic equity between different communities and nations” (^{Buckner; Stein, 2020}, p. 160).

In the internationalization guided by NAFSA, EAIE and IAU “there is a notable absence of involvement with political issues, historical or geopolitical dimensions of relations and knowledge production”; There is also a gap regarding “how power inequality shapes relationships between racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic differences” (^{Buckner; Stein, 2020}, p. 161). The internationalization of higher education with an emphasis on the objectives and assumptions of the global north keeps subjects from the global south invisible (^{Piccin; Finardi, 2021}). This is because “from the point of view of the Western project of promoting the internationalization of the university, the difficulty of Higher Education becoming international lies in the deficiency, and deficiency is always something of the Other” (^{Martinez, 2017}, p. 82, emphasis added).

In addition to developing objectives related to the local community and society, it is important that internationalization encompasses services and responsibilities towards global communities. It is necessary for the internationalization of higher education to discuss and deal with the unequal relations in terms of policies, economics and culture of the countries involved in the internationalization process, as well as helping students to fight against the power imbalances that are historical and ongoing in the relations between the global north and south (^{Buckner; Stein, 2020}).

The tensions between countries in the global south and global north are especially those where internationalization is based on the other’s difference and education is seen as a commodity rather than a public good. These epistemological assumptions for the construction of knowledge in terms of internationalization increase the social, technological and human gaps between universities in the global north and south (^{Piccin; Finardi, 2021}; ^{Martinez, 2017}).

The asymmetries that strain internationalization relations between the global North and South are circumscribed in terms of English-speaking international mobility (with emphasis on the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom), international academic rankings with criteria established by institutions in the Global North, epistemological racism and academic supported by monolingualism in English and hegemony of journals from the Global North. These hegemonic internationalization practices can be broken by composing a polyphony of voices around what and how to internationalize Higher Education Institutions located in Latin America (^{Piccin; Finardi, 2021}) and in other regions that make up the South.

In internationalization agendas, the global south still perceives the internationalization process as mobility, while the global north sees it as education for global citizenship. In North-South relations, the South tends to be harmed, unless the internationalization of higher education for institutions that are part of the relationship effectively values the contributions of the South, some dependencies will be maintained. The south-south relationship can be established through a base of knowledge exchange, in addition to cooperation and solidarity, without focusing only on mobility or using south-south relations for regionalism, but forming networks, forming global citizens and positioning ourselves in the global scenario (^{Morosini; Corte; Guilherme, 2017}).

The internationalization of higher education can be seen as a field of power and disputes. Power and its intrinsic relationships, as highlighted by ^{Haugaard and Clegg (2009}), can operate in a positive or negative way. ^{Cunha and Mello (2022}) consider that the negative aspect centers the internationalization of higher education on economic and market assumptions. On the other hand, the positive face of internationalization is expressed through solidarity, counter-hegemony, interculturality, respect for differences and through diversity. Symmetrical and supportive partnerships and university extension are decolonial strategies to promote social justice and strengthen education as a public good.

So that the internationalization of higher education does not become a mechanism for reproducing social inequalities, universities must seek to value a southern epistemology, which in the words of ^{Santos and Menezes (2009}) means to produce and validate knowledge and experiences of those who suffer capitalist and colonial violence by the “dominant epistemological norm”, dialoguing horizontally between knowledge. This implies learning about the South and going to it, as well as learning from the South and with the South. The South does not consist of the geographic south of the world, but concerns knowledge and cultures epistemologically, politically, socially and economically marginalized by colonialism and modern capitalism. The “internationalization of higher education can be a path to social development with justice and well-being instead of a political and ideological instrument used to open new economic markets” (^{Almeida Filho, 2008}, p. 110).

^{Abba, Bellini-Soares and Santos (2023}) and ^{Leal, Souza and Moraes (2023}) corroborate this line of thought, explaining that significant and transformative internationalization occurs in a horizontal manner through actions capable of democratizing education, developing solidarity, promoting social justice, reducing asymmetries and transforming people.

Exclusion and Inclusion in global terms

To understand inclusion policies, it is necessary to consider them within the scope of the proposal for education for all as a major educational movement that grew stronger in the 1990s and responds to the need of schools and universities to attend to all the people who are excluded from them.

The political-economic scenario unfolded in recent decades, marked by the logic of capitalism in its configuration expressed by globalization and neoliberalism, is a scenario in which the marks of unemployment and social exclusion are reflected in educational proposals, such as the formulation of public policies that can respond to social crises and exclusion.

For ^{Alves (1995}), this economic model, called neoliberal, constitutes a new guise of bourgeois discourse, in the face of the crisis of capitalism that barely disguises the “state failure” in managing the control of the homeless and idle, brought about by the economic recession. and high unemployment rate. At a time when the crisis of capitalism is rooted in the impossibility of capital reproducing, more and more elastically, social wealth, bourgeois policies have worked to abandon the excluded who, until recently, under the protective mantle of the welfare state, lived by unproductively consuming parts of social wealth.

There is no longer any way to ignore the fact that, today, the tendency towards barbarism is deepening as a result of this process. It manifests itself in the growing mass of excluded people who, without the possibility of returning to work, become targets of so-called inclusion policies.

The growing technological advances of recent years, with greater preponderance in the social processes of automation, robotics, microelectronics, information technologies and the internet, have brought significant changes in the world of work and capital production. There is a reduction in the factory and industrial workforce generated by large industry commanded by the binomial Taylorism-Fordism, especially in advanced capitalist countries. However, in parallel with this process, there is a growing sub-proletarianization of work, through the incorporation of precarious, temporary, partial work and the high unemployment rate already pointed out by ^{Antunes (1999}). Such changes in the labor market translate into high unemployment rates.

This reality produces a large mass of workers who face a complex situation of social exclusion. ^{Dupas (2000}, p. 132) pointed out that the growth of social exclusion “increases pressure on national States demanding the resumption of effective public policies in the social area”. Education, as a social policy, has been called for as a strategy to serve this large population, thus contributing to alleviating situations of conflict and social tension.

At the international level, social exclusion is gaining importance, and this has been a reason for the “dysfunctionality” of the system. ^{Santos (2001}, p. 171) states that this phenomenon has blamed individuals for exclusion from the system and “peripheral societies are considered mainly responsible for their ‘backward’ situation” (author’s emphasis), camouflaging the contradictions imposed by the mode of production in capitalist society, accumulation and circulation of capital.

Social exclusion, in addition to structural unemployment, takes on other forms based on social relations, precarization of work and life, all constituted as global realities to a greater or lesser extent depending on culture, power relations and historical perspectives from the most diverse countries in the world. Regarding this aspect, ^{Lopes (2006}, p. 13) points out:

[...] “social exclusion” is characterized by a set of phenomena that are configured in the broad field of contemporary social relations: structural unemployment, precarious work, social disqualification, identity disaggregation, dehumanization of the other, the annulment of alterity, the homeless population, hunger, violence, lack of access to goods and services, security, justice and citizenship, among others.

In this context of crisis, we are witnessing, more intensely, from globalization, migratory flows worldwide. Migrations have always been present in the history of civilization, whether for reasons related to subsistence, the search for better living conditions or even refuge. According to the Global Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees² (ACNUR, 2022, n.p), “at the end of 2022, 108.4 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events that seriously disrupt public order”. Large masses of refugees and stateless people cross borders and begin to experience exclusionary living conditions that involve cultural and linguistic diversity, legal aspects, subsistence conditions and access to health, education, among other policies, which encourages receiving countries to develop public policies to manage this flow.

Moreira and Borba (2001), when discussing migration crises, propose the inversion of this approach to the term migration in crisis and draw attention to the capacity of nation-states to manage this phenomenon. Hence the views of receiving societies on immigrants, public debates regarding the processes of reception or resistance to them, as well as protection regimes - international or domestic -, including their conceptual limits and practical application.

Brazil has received countless people as refugees. Data released by the “Refuge in Numbers” Report shows that, in 2022, we had more than 50,355 requests, coming from 139 countries. Among the nationalities, the following stand out: Venezuelans (67%), Cubans (10.9%) and Angolans (6.8%). In relation to requests, it appears that the “category of reasons most applied for the recognition of refugee status was ‘Serious and Widespread Violation of Human Rights (GGVDH)’, responsible for 82.4% of the total” (UNHCR, 2023, n.p).

In this sense, what we are witnessing today is the deepening of the international crisis and situations of exclusion. This configuration imposes on universities, through policies, strategies, projects and internationalization actions, the need to contribute to their teaching, research and extension actions.

UEMS Acolhe Program and Internal Notices focused on Latin America: south-south internationalization via research, extension, mobility, inclusion and reception

UEMS has a history marked by inclusion policies. Created in 1993, the university was created with the purpose of bringing higher education to the interior of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Today the university is present in 15 municipalities with physical units and 13 distance education centers. It was the first university in Brazil to offer quotas for indigenous people in its undergraduate courses and the third to allocate quotas for black people. UEMS, which offers a quota system with 10% of its places reserved for indigenous people - Law n.º 2,589 of 12/26/2002 (MS, 2002) and 20% for black people - Law n.º 2,605 of 01/06/2003 (MS, 2003), held its first entrance exam with quotas in December 2003 for admission in 2004. In the regulation by the University’s Superior Councils, phenotypic verification for black people and the origin of a public school for black people and indigenous people were included as criteria (^{Cordeiro; Neres, 2023}). Currently, UEMS has a strong role in affirmative policies, with an increase in quotas for undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including people with disabilities and transgender and transvestites. The latter are only included in postgraduate studies. In 2023, UEMS created the Pro-Rectorate of Affirmative Actions, Equity and Student Permanence (PROAFE), this Rectorate, among other objectives, has the mission of ensuring inclusion and permanence in higher education through the promotion of actions that recognize ethnic-racial, gender, and territorial diversity and plurality, thus being oriented to include social segments that have historically been academically and socially discriminated against (UEMS, 2023).

In 2017, the university started, in the Pro-Rectorate of Extension, Culture and Community Affairs (PROEC), the UEMS Acolhe Program - Linguistic, Humanitarian and Educational Reception for International Migrants -, which aims to promote extension actions, free of charge, that enable the linguistic, humanitarian and educational insertion of international migrants, based on the extension course of Portuguese as a Language of Reception. Today the Program is the result of a series of extension actions developed within the scope of UEMS, and its purpose is to provide differentiated assistance in different areas of knowledge for the international migrant community in the state. UEMS Acolhe thus became an institutional program, being included in the list of UEMS strategic projects and in the University’s management contract with the Government of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

Among the actions developed by the UEMS Acolhe Program, the free Portuguese language courses for the target audience stand out, which, by enabling linguistic appropriation, favors the cultural and social insertion of migrants and refugees in the community. Furthermore, the Program also contributes to the training of agents to work in teaching Portuguese to speakers of other languages. The program coordination defines training based on course planning, definition of teaching levels, development of assessment forms and production of specific teaching material for the aforementioned target audience.

The Program is structured around three axes: linguistic, humanitarian and educational. On the linguistic axis, actions are carried out to offer Portuguese courses for international migrants and refugees and training for reception agents. On the humanitarian side, the Program, in partnership with other institutions, offers social assistance services, which help with the inclusion of migrants in Mato Grosso do Sul society. In the educational axis, actions are focused on migrants’ access to university education (Zotto; Magalhães; Silva, 2022). The first initiative in this regard was the offer of a specific selection process in undergraduate courses at the institution (UEMS, 2022). To this end, the Program worked in partnership with the State Education Council in the revalidation processes of diplomas issued abroad.

The Program’s operations comprise five municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul: Campo Grande, Dourados, Nova Andradina, Cassilândia and Corumbá. In these locations, Portuguese courses are taught as the host language, in addition to other activities. Data from the Program Reports show that, in 2020 and 2021, due to the social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, 1,477 (one thousand, four hundred and seventy-seven) people attended the courses offered by UEMS Acolhe, including: Língua Solidária - Portuguese Practices for Migrants and Refugees; Portuguese Language Practices for International Migrants; Aspects of Brazilian Culture; Practices in Additional Languages for Reception Agents; Welcoming Workshops; Training of Reception Agents; Portuguese for Foreigners: Host Module. In 2022, the number of migrants served was 630 (six hundred and thirty) people.

The maintenance and expansion of a strategic project at the institution within the scope of UEMS Acolhe is important because international extension promotes a deep relationship between the university and society. The dynamic interaction between internationalization and extension, as ^{Leal, Souza and Moraes (2023}) point out, has the potential to undo inequalities, as it subverts negative consequences of globalization and carries out inclusive practices that are not guided by economic rationality. As these authors show, internationalization and extension in higher education are still weakly articulated in Brazilian institutions, but as internationalization projects strengthen this articulation, the social function of the university will also be strengthened on a basis capable of facing historical limitations and promote social justice.

In addition to the UEMS Acolhe Project, which develops practical internationalization actions in a local context, the institution’s Internationalization Policy (UEMS, 2020a) and the International Mobility and Financial Support Programs for Mobility (UEMS, 2020b; 2021) promote the insertion of university community, preferably in Latin American countries, considering that south-south relations can contribute to a more egalitarian internationalization that is in line with the political, economic and social issues in which UEMS is inserted.

The International Relations Office (ARELIN-UEMS)³ launched Notices 2021/2022, 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 to promote outgoing mobility and provide undergraduate students with international experience through international scientific initiation projects, Institutional Program for International Scientific Initiation (PIBICin) and extension, Institutional International Extension Scholarship Program (PIBEXin), as well as allowing postgraduate students and employees (teachers and technicians) of the institution to articulate their projects and/or professional and work internships abroad.

Although the notices primarily target projects aimed at Latin America, some proposals were aimed at countries in other regions. The candidates awarded with scholarships and international mobility aid and who were destined for Latin America, in the three notices, went to nine countries, with the following number of projects: Argentina (35), Chile (2), Colombia (2), Costa Rica (2), Cuba (2), Honduras (1), Mexico (1), Uruguay (1) and Paraguay (8). For these 55 projects financed by UEMS, mobility towards Latin America was carried out by professors (14), technicians (7), postgraduate students (8) and undergraduate students (26).

The offer of scholarships with internal resources is extremely important for the engagement of the internal community with the internationalization of the university, especially because both language barriers and the financing of internationalization actions are still a challenge for small and medium-sized universities, as highlighted the studies by ^{Miura (2006}) and ^{Sierra and Coscarelli (2017}). Sending students and employees to these Latin countries provided opportunities for research and cooperation around important issues for understanding the dynamics between Brazil and the countries involved. Table 1 shows the quantitative distribution of the university community with projects financed by UEMS in Latin America in the years 2021, 2022 and 2023.

We list in Table 2 the themes covered in each of the staff and student projects that were destined for Latin America in these three notices. The table allows us to understand the interests of students and employees in destination countries for international mobility. Interests were scored based on themes raised from the title and general objective of the project.

In the third edition of internal notices launched by UEMS, in 2023, for outgoing mobility to be carried out in 2024, UEMS opened exclusive vacancies for the target audience of affirmative actions to undertake scientific initiation, 5 Scholarships from the Institutional Scientific Initiation Program for International Affirmative Actions (PIBICin-AFF), these scholarships are not listed in the surveys above. In 2024, UEMS innovates by offering, through Notices 2024/2025, the possibility for undergraduate students to develop Initiation to Teaching in the International Context, 4 Scholarships from the Institutional Program for Introduction to International Teaching (PIBIDin).

Finally, it is worth highlighting that among the actions to encourage South-South cooperation via internal financing is UEMS’s adherence to the Programs promoted by the Group for International Cooperation of Brazilian Universities (GCUB). This investment in receiving foreign students provides opportunities for UEMS postgraduate programs to train and interact with students from Latin and African countries, opening up opportunities for internationalization actions at home (coordinated by ARELIN through projects with these students), raises the level of internationalization of programs, at the same time re-signifies power dynamics, opening paths for the reinterpretation and re-signification of local realities.

The postgraduate programs that received these foreign students for academic and multicultural experiences since UEMS entered the Notices were: Doctorate in Agronomy (1), Doctorate in Natural Resources (3), Master’s in Agronomy (3), Master’s in Regional Development and Production Systems (1), Master’s Degree in Education (4), Master’s Degree in Literature (2), Master’s Degree in Natural Resources (1), Master’s Degree in Animal Science (3), Professional Master’s Degree in Scientific and Mathematics Education (2), Master’s Degree Professional in Health Teaching (2). It is worth noting that these foreign students are enrolled as regular students in the programs and receive a scholarship from UEMS to support their master’s or doctoral studies at the institution. These 22 students come from Colombia, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Mozambique, Peru and Venezuela.

Final Considerations

The internationalization of higher education, from a critical and inclusive perspective, decolonizes knowledge, promotes solidarity, reduces asymmetries of knowledge and power, and transforms people. To this end, universities must direct efforts to consolidate internationalization policies that promote social justice and democratization of public universities. The objective established for this article was to discuss internationalization from a decolonial and critical perspective, analyzing the actions of the State University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UEMS) to promote internationalization and inclusion in the context of Latin America.

It was possible to verify that UEMS has adopted practices that bring the internationalization of society closer through outreach actions aimed at migrants, especially Venezuelans. The offer of Portuguese as a foreign language in the UEMS Acolhe Program, for example, materializes internationalization actions at home that focus on the social needs of the community served. As highlighted by ^{Wit, Leal and Unangst (2020}), it is imperative that Brazilian universities develop a type of internationalization that contributes significantly to society through policies and strategies that promote social and global justice, and this includes programs that reach refugees and neglected populations.

It is noteworthy that the internal funding notices promote outgoing mobility by financing students and employees with projects in Latin America and ingoing mobility by financing foreign students to pursue postgraduate studies at UEMS. Some reports delivered by these students and staff about their experiences and learning show that without institutional financial support they would not have been able to access the services and educational or professional training they had access to.

This also shows the importance of the democratization of internationalization implemented by UEMS in its ongoing policy and programs, as in addition to providing mobility opportunities for those who would otherwise not be able to do so, it also provides historical and political awareness through the insertion of its academic community in south-south interactions. UEMS is following a path of openness for dialogue in different areas of knowledge with different peoples and cultures, it has strengthened internationalization from a perspective of solidarity and social responsibility and to use the words of ^{Abba, Bellini-Soares and Santos (2023}, p. 219), is also building “equality of opportunities in access to experiences of internationalization of education by subordinate sectors, such as migrants, refugees, indigenous peoples, social movements and families with lower purchasing power”. Despite this construction and advances, it must be noted that there are still challenges to overcome at UEMS, both in linguistic terms and in terms of representation of all units and courses in critical and significant internationalization processes.