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The chapter outlines the main forms of diasporas' contributions to the economic development and growth along with the determinants of their scale and scope. It then focuses on the diasporas' economic potential through participation in labour markets as an international staffing option at the level of individual organizations. Both the opportunities and threats of using diaspora members in international staffing are discussed. Finally, possible directions for future research are identified.

The word Ubuntu has become widely known around the world as an African humanitarian wisdom that promotes international solidarity and Indigenous knowledge. The appeal of Ubuntu,as an African traditional philosophy is the emphasis on concern for fellow human beings. The primary aim of this critical literature review is to demonstrate the role Ubuntu can play in enriching social work and shifting the Euro-American foundations of the profession in teaching diaspora African students and practicing social work with diaspora African communities. The humanitarian values of Ubuntu, however, need not be limited to Africans.

This chapter explores how Ubuntu can be adopted in teaching social work and also enriching social work theoretical underpinnings. Social work has roots in Western philosophical foundations and cultural experiences, with a primary focus on supporting disadvantaged people in communities where it is practiced.However, there is a recognised need to expand this Western orientation to include other views as social work expands to be a global academic and practice profession.

An approach to learning and teaching based on Ubuntu has been described as ‘Ubuntugogy’ (Bangura, 2005). Ubuntugogy represents a holistic educational paradigm where education plays a role beyond an individual’s acquisition of knowledge and skills but instead aims at total development for the individual scholar, their community and their physical and social environment. Social work education is aimed at equipping students with the skills to contribute to the welfare of other human beings in the same way Ubuntugogy recognises the importance of mastering skills to transform individual learners and their communities. Both are therefore focused on practical education to create a world that meets the needs of the individuals and their communities.

Ubuntu approaches view education as a means for struggle for survival and liberation from oppression. There are similar approaches in education literature that emphasise the cultural and historical aspects of education (Lave, 2019). Ubuntu philosophy has roots in African traditions and history that also have clear echoes in other traditional societies that emphasise interdependence and relationships between people and their physical world in an intricate web of life.

Social work can learn from Ubuntu if it is to move beyond its traditional Western roots. Ubuntu and social work share the commonality of concern for human welfare. Ubuntu goes a step further in emphasising the intricate linkages between humans and nature in a non-hierarchical web. Social work can also enrich Ubuntu with its body of knowledge, accumulated since the late 19th century, in practical application of the identified Ubuntu ideals. This chapter presents an attempt at such a dialogue.

As the number of international students increases globally, non-traditional destinations have emerged in the global higher education arena, despite the long-lasting dominance of traditional destinations, such as the United States, the UK, Australia, France, or Germany. In search of the causes of the change in the number of international students favoring non-traditional destinations, this study focuses on the Turkish case and identifies the macro-level efforts to increase the enrollment of international students in Turkish higher education institutions by utilizing the theory of new institutionalism and theories regarding the college choices of international students. As an upper-middle-income, developing country and an emerging non-traditional destination, constituting a regional hub for international students in the last decade at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe, the case of Turkey would give unique examples of macro-level strategies for increasing the enrollment of international students in other higher education systems.

Global mass communications and advances in new information and telecommunication technology present a new challenge to the traditional way of conducting international relations. While the mode of conducting diplomacy is changing, diplomats are forced to communicate with many new actors in the international stage through new means of communication. The chapter overviews the existing digital diplomacy research reports. Against this backdrop it presents the outcomes of a 2017–2018 study of communication strategies employed by six countries of the Western Balkans, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. The findings of the study give a first-hand data from the practical point of view on how, which, and to which extent digital tools are utilized as a tool of digital tools are utilized as a tool of digital diplomacy by the official communicators of ministries of foreign affairs (MFA) in the researched region.

India and the Republic of Korea are two prominent democracies in Asia. Both countries had to fight for their long-desired freedom. India's growing friendly relationship with the Republic of Korea has been marked by mutual understanding and bilateral trading cooperation. India–Republic of Korea relations have made great strides in recent years and have become truly multidimensional, spurred by a significant convergence of interests, mutual goodwill, and high-level knowledge exchanges. This study intends to critically discuss how soft power has been applied in New Delhi–Seoul relations and how soft power has been a very effective tool to maintain unity among the Indian diaspora and the Korean community. Soft power has been beneficial for India in propagating India's films, culture, medicines, yoga, heritage, etc., through which India is generating revenue. The blending of liberal economic policy and knowledge-based soft power diplomacy has immensely helped in making reciprocal bilateral relations. South Korea's open market policies found resonance with India's economic liberalization and “Look East Policy” as well as “Act East Policy.” Similarly, India has opened up its economy through the adoption of “new economic policy.” With the trade liberalization, India had started vibrant trading relations with South Korea. The significant investment of Korean companies in India has made a strong base of economic relations. Both countries have developed their knowledge exchange programs in many ways.

This chapter seeks to look at the most important trends in international relations and global affairs spurred by the coronavirus crisis, and its long-term repercussions. In this analysis the author adapts the current biopolitical scholarship to such disciplines as security studies, foreign policy analysis, international relations and regional studies, and world politics and globalization. The chapter starts with discussing the biopolitics of the coronavirus crisis from a security perspective that requires a juxtaposition of COVID-19 emergency with some other securitized biopolitical events and experiences such as the war on terror and the refugee crisis. When it comes to the global level, the analysis includes the new roles of global organizations and their contribution to the fight against COVID-19. Another perspective is grounded in the discussions on the idea of “the international” and the reverberations of COVID-19 for the entire system of inter-state/inter-governmental/trans-national relations, including its regional dimensions. From the viewpoint of national foreign policies, the pandemic can be viewed as a global calamity producing new forms of diplomatic activity that significantly re-actualize and expand the concepts of biodiplomacy and health diplomacy.

This chapter presents a cultural re-interpretation of race/ethnicity and sexuality in the American academy from the perspective of a gay man originally from India settled in the United States for more than 22 years. The reflection is based on experiences in graduate education in the United States during the closing decade of the 20th century.

The author employs a personal critical narrative, gaining insights and developing an alternative “voice” of race/ethnicity and sexuality other than what gets reported in the mainstream media and contrary to stereotyped representations. It involved resisting real and/or imagined lapses emerging in Asian-Indian contexts in areas such as ethnic gender role differentiation, heterosexism, improper academic practices, and unethical intellectual property infringement, while at the same time questioning the limitations of American gay white hegemonic dictates in a journey of self-discovery and self-growth.

The chapter identifies select strategies in the provision of information services that, had they been available during the author’s graduate education, would have better addressed (and supported) efforts to deconstruct and understand perceptions of unjust/prejudiced behaviors. The insights are meant to provide future directions to both individuals and institutions that are coping with similar needs, situations, and perceptions of people who are stuck between a rock and hard place owing to intersections in their multiple (and seemingly conflicting) identities (e.g., based on race/ethnicity and sexuality). The chapter calls for a more inclusive understanding of diversity-information-leadership intersections to better respond to the needs of such marginalized individuals and communities.

In 2010, the Canadian government introduced the National Action Plan for the Implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security. Approximately 24 countries have developed national action plans to evaluate and monitor the implementation of UNSCR 1325 that calls for the inclusion of all women in peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding and the protection of women. Refugee women were not included in the Action Plan as partners in peacemaking, mentioned only in sections referring to protection and post-conflict reconstruction. As such, refugee women are not considered key players in plans to bring about peace despite evidence that refugee women's organizations can participate in and even lead peacebuilding efforts.

This chapter analyzes the activities of three refugee women's organizations from Tibet, the Sudan, and Burma/Myanmar concluding that it is strategically important to support women's transnational networks and facilitate contact between diaspora, refugee, and local women's organizations interested in conflict transformation. A gendered analysis of refugee peacebuilding capacity reveals gaps in peacebuilding capacity approaches that become evident when female diasporas are the focus of the research. The women's refugee organizations show the capacity for transnational bridge building, that is, the capacity to build and sustain networks across geographical, social and political boundaries with the aim of bringing about nonviolent social change.