This article reports the findings of a study on the intercultural dimension of internationalisation at two universities, located in China and Canada, as evidenced through their visiting scholar (VS) programme. Andreotti and her research team identified three articulations of internationalisation in higher education that are located in a modern/colonial imaginary. They propose a fourth articulation, relational trans-localism, that is located outside the modern/colonial imaginary. As participants in the VS programme, we used critical ethnography and critical discourse analysis to investigate the influences of the modern/colonial articulations on the intercultural dimension of the program, and our attempts to develop practices outside the modern/colonial imaginary. Our findings show that although the programme was profoundly affected by neoliberal and liberal discourses, we achieved some success in creating spaces of relational trans-localism. We conclude by identifying the factors that were enabling of these alternative spaces.