AND ONE DAY LAND BORDERS WERE CLOSED… THE REINVENTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OFFICES AS OF THE HEALTH EMERGENCY CAUSED BY THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. THE CASES OF UNAJ AND UNQ

Abstract

The present article arises from a collaborative work between two International Relations Offices of Argentinean universities that, working together, share challenges, objectives and activities. These are the National University of Quilmes and the National University Arturo Jauretche.

The article analyzes how the COVID-19 health emergency has impacted on the daily activities of these management areas between 2020 and 2021. New horizons that experience has marked without forgetting the positive aspects of the period preceding the pandemic, but at the same time enriching the task with what this experience allows to rescue. Some unexpected results have been transformed into solutions to old problems, but simultaneously, new questions open up about how to continue working towards a comprehensive internationalization that allows the entire university community to be reached.

In the first part, the article describes the "daily" actions of these management areas, to subsequently present the challenges that the pandemic generated to the entire university community in general and to international relations offices in particular.

A set of surveys and interviews to students who, in the context of the health emergency, had experiences of virtual mobility, yield results that are problematized.

In the final analysis, a few words are shared as a conclusion to continue debating about the (new) tools that already existed but the pandemic left at hand, and how not to fall into the trap of generating an internationalization marked by a gap between purchasing powers.