Mobility as ‘becoming’: a Bourdieuian analysis of the factors shaping international student mobility

Abstract

This paper unpacks the meanings and implications of the mobility of international students in vocational education -an under-researched group in the field of international education. This four-year study found that transnational mobility is regarded as a resourceful vehicle to help international students 'become' the kind of person they want to be. The paper justifies the value of re-conceptualising student mobility as a process of 'becoming'. Mobility as 'becoming' encompasses students' aspirations for educational, social, personal and professional development. Theorising mobility as 'becoming' captures international students' lived realities and has the potential to facilitate the re-imagining of international student mobility with new outlooks. By theorising mobility as 'becoming', this research suggests the importance of drawing on the integrated and transformative nature of Bourdieu's forms of capital in understanding the logics and practice of the social field -international student mobility.

Between striated and smooth space: Exploring the topology of transnational student mobility

“…King et al (2006: 259) argue that "migration must not be thought of as a single relocation decision by an individual at a moment in time". Instead, Carlson (2013) suggests that the ways in which transnational students become mobile should be studied, for instance, by applying a biographical and processual perspective that connects student mobility with the trajectories of students' lives, including their previous migration experiences and those of their friends (Carlson, 2013;Frändberg, 2013;Ploner, 2015;Tran, 2015). An often neglected issue is how transnational student mobility can also result from an imagined possible future, which is formed by the individual's life-course aspirations and plans for mobility over the long term (Findlay, 2011, Findlay et al, 2011.…”

“…Still, we will follow Allen (2016) and suggest that approaching such mobility as a kind of topologically founded assemblage can provide additional insights into the processes that shape transnational students' geographical, personal and professional life courses. The process of becoming a transnational student depends on the configurations of assemblages, as they influence the student's opportunities to move to a new place for his or her studies, which may be seen as a process of becoming something else related to his or her aspirations for a future life trajectory (Tran, 2015). In this process of "becoming of becoming", one assemblage actually constitutes another.…”

“…However, students' links to distant places in the past (e.g., the home country) or in a potential future (e.g., the workplace) may feel more important than many current links to the place in which they presently study (Frändberg, 2013;Ploner, 2015;Tran, 2015). The differential importance attributed to such links illustrates the need for a spatial concept that allows for the conceptualisation of the relationality of student mobility, i.e., a way of theorising proximity and distance, present and past, and flow and fixation in a single process (Lysgård, 2016).…”

“…In the latter notion of power, we have found the essence of understanding the process of becoming a transnational student, which not only involves historical conditions and contemporary practices but also the consideration of students' expectations and plans. Our concern here relates to how 'power to' makes things happen through assemblages may explain the process of becoming a transnational student (Carlson, 2013;Tran, 2015;Zhang and Guo, 2015), but the possibility of becoming 'something more' than a student since student life is only a temporary situation linked to a larger life course.…”

“…The process is about not only "becoming" a transnational student (Carlson, 2013;Tran, 2015) but also becoming what lies beyond the student's temporary position. Accordingly, in this study regarding how transnational students relate to space and create student assemblages, the analytical approach that we propose concerns, first, the roles of both material and expressive practices in constructing the temporality of becoming a student.…”