Policy mobilities, networks, and minjian as method for reimagining decoloniality: following the policy learning experiment with international curricula in Shanghai

Policy borrowing is a common practice in contemporary societies. China once used international curricula as sources of reference to inform local education innovation and respond to new globalisation demands. However, China’s recent policies saw a radical shift in the policy learning orientation and increasingly emphasised ‘Chinese characteristics’. This paper follows the policy initiative to learn from international curricula in Shanghai, based on a three-step study comprising document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and a network ethnography analysis. The findings highlight four approaches of policy mobilities and mutations, namely ‘policy weaving’, ‘policy segregating’, ‘policy fabricating’, and ‘policy dialoguing’. They demonstrate complex relations and intersections between West-centric and China-centric networks, subjectivities, discourses, and dominations. Echoing decoloniality studies, this paper foregrounds the need to recognise and challenge intersected structures of power and suggests the minjian perspective to (re)imagine the potential for global pluriversality.