Across the world, the work of teacher educators in universities is subject to contradictory discourses of, on the one hand, globalisation and standardisation and, on the other, innovation in both teaching and research. This article is a critical account of a particular experience of an Australian teacher educator leading an international teaching practicum in South Africa. The account shows how multifarious tensions play out in the practice of a teacher educator working in transcultural spaces utilising "border pedagogy". (Contains 2 notes.)