Places and mechanisms of belonging and exclusion: Intra‐EU academic migration in a comparative perspective

Abstract

Intra‐EU doctoral migrants are doubly privileged: as EU citizens they enjoy free movement rights and as academics their intra‐EU mobility is promoted by the EU's measures to establish a European Research Area. This paper takes a closer look at these favourable conditions by examining intra‐EU mobile doctoral academics in different places. To understand the experiences of migrating into academic spheres abroad and being on the threshold of entering the academic workforce, our theoretical approach brings together theories of distinctive practices resulting in exclusion and theories of belonging. We consider the knowledge resources, including language abilities, that are required for the doctoral migrants' inclusion in the academic workforce abroad by using a comparative view on places. Our empirical analysis focuses on graduates in the social sciences and humanities who moved from Germany to France or the Netherlands during their educational trajectories. Suggesting a place‐based comparative approach, we contribute to the debates about barriers to intra‐EU academic migration. We explain (i) place‐specific obstacles due to differing understandings of ‘appropriate’ knowledge and language abilities in higher education that affect social and academic life and (ii) how these barriers result in the doctoral migrants being in‐ and excluded in academic environments abroad.