Overview
1. Outline several theoretical approaches to understanding
the dynamics of motion and mobility
2. Metaphors of motion-commotion/location-dislocation to
explore the dynamics of transnational student mobility in
higher education
3. Identify the dimensions of transnational student mobility
4. Map different kinds of transnational student mobility within
and beyond the boundaries of national states
5. The role of transnational student mobility in re/producing
personal, political and class projects and uneven
geographies of power and knowledge.
Three Approaches to Spatiality, Temporality, Sociality
1.
Space of Flows/ Space of Places (Castells, 2005)
i.
Flows and place are counter-posed and binarized. Flows are the dominant spatial form
arising from transformations in the new global economy. Flows operate at three levels: the
material support arising from digital signals; nodes and hubs which structure the
connections and key activities of given locale(s); and the spatial organisation of the
dominant managerial elites who direct social activity (e.g. Reich’s [1990] symbolic analyst).
ii.
Places are outside of the network society. The form, function and meaning of a locale are
self-contained.
iii.
This is a techno-science-managerial account which reifies and valorises flows as
belonging to a dis-embedded, digital, global world, and where points of fixity – such as
hubs and nodes - are not place-based.
2.
Fixity and motion (Harvey, 1982)
i.
3.
The historical geography of capitalist production is constructed out of the intersecting
motions of capital and labour (p. 405) and the tensions between fixity and motion in the
circulation of capital (concentration and dispersal; local commitment and global concerns
(p. 422). Multiple and diverse forums in which class and fractional struggle can unfold.
Logics, capabilities and tipping points - (Sassen, 2006)
i.
Logics are the outcome of organising ideological projects; capabilities are collective
productions whose utilities are conditioned by the relational system within which they
function; tipping points are when capabilities enable switching from one relational system
to another.
Motion
Contemporary projects (political,
economic, cultural social) and
theoretical approaches to
globalisation advance, fetishise
and valorise ‘motion’, ‘mobility’,
‘movement’ in time/space
Commotion
Motion destabilises existing points
of fixity and breaks them open.
These ‘motion’ projects are
constitutive of new socialities,
spatialities and temporalities, and
therefore the way space is
implicated in power, production
and social relations.
Location
Place – lived space; the outcome
of efforts to contain, to immobilise;
constituted out of spatialised
relations and the narratives about
these which fix meanings
(Massey, 1994)…where the local
brings together different scales of
practice/social action (Amin,
2004).
Dis-location
De-stabilised spatialised
social relations as new
ensembles of material
objects, labour and
institutions, offer alternative
narratives constitutive of
competing new socio-spatial
relations (Hudson, 2001).
ECONOMIC
DIMENSIONS
OF
MOBILITY
PROJECTS
SOCIAL
POLITICAL
CULTURAL
Polyvalent Transnational Student Mobility
The transnational movement of students is a dynamic,
polyvalent and multi-scalar phenomenon.
Involves setting into motion socially-embedded selves and
institutions, their movement over national borders or
renegotiation of national regulatory boundaries, and their
re/dislocation in new social formations.
These are complex economic, cultural, political and social
processes are multi-dimensional, overlapping, and
contradictory.
Involves individual, institutional, national and supranational
projects with uneven geographies, and unanticipated,
outcomes.
Dimensions
ECONOMIC
POLITICAL
CULTURAL
SOCIAL
Forms/ Initiatives
Transnational education markets (institutional, national, regional,
global) - flows of students from one place to another; calculations of
global value
EU Research Area e.g. Erasmus Mundus recruits brain power from
around the globe; EU’s mobility as ‘fifth freedom’
Development assistance e.g. Commonwealth Scholarships,
Chinese Africa scholarships,
Components of consortia e.g. to secure status/brand - WUN
International Schools
Diplomacy initiatives, e.g. Fulbright Program, Erasmus Mundus,
Building regional and global identities e.g. EU Erasmus Mobility
programme; cosmopolitanism as global identity; International
Schools
Personal and social development
ECONOMIC
Transnational education markets (institutional, national, regional,
global) - flows of students from one place to another
Search for global talent – R&D initiatives
Create new competitive economic spaces– e.g. regions European
Higher Education Area/European Research Area e.g. programmes
such as Erasmus Mundus recruits brain power from around the
globe, or new spaces internally within nations e.g. Korea.
Individual/family strategies to secure globally-mediated knowledge
spaces within (e.g. International Schools) and across national borders
(e.g. Hong Kong students in Vancouver, Waters, 2005, 2009)
Development assistance e.g. ADO, Australia; Commonwealth
Scholarships, Chinese Africa scholarships
Components of networks and consortia e.g. mobility scholarships
to thicken relationships across the network, it is co-constitute of the
brand and the subjectivity – e.g. WUN/WUN scholar
(GOA, 2008: 8)
(GAO, 2009: 5)
(World Bank, 2007: 19)
PotocniK, EC, 2007
POLITICAL
Diplomacy initiatives
Diplomacy initiatives, such as the USA’s Fulbright Program, are
promoted particularly during periods when the balance of social
forces on the global order are changing or being challenged.
These initiatives sit squarely in the middle of foreign policy and
national security interests.
Rhodes Scholarships (Oxford) (1902)– for the British colonies,
the US and Germany – “an understanding between the three
great powers will render war impossible”. Contributes to the
making of a political elite.
Development Initiatives
Development assistance – largely taken up by the elite e.g.
Commonwealth Scholarships, Chinese Africa scholarships
Higher education is enrolled as a form of soft power.
CULTURAL
Build a ‘regional’ identity – such as the European Commission’s
Erasmus Mobility Scheme. This scheme was initially launched in
1987 to ensure the development of a European ‘elite’ committed to
the European regionalising project, and to further and embed a
European identity to side alongside, and destabilise, the hegemony
of a national identity. The Leuven Communique (2009) from the 6th
Bologna Ministerial meeting places a premium on mobility (20% of
students by 2020)
‘Transnational elite’ - International Schools, with its ‘International
Baccalaureate’, offers a global positional cultural good to a mobile
transnational elite.
‘Cosmopolitanism’ – a global identity –an intellectual current that
has emerged with globalisation; challenges the nation state as the
container of identities. It offers itself as a methodology for
globalisation; a way of embracing the ‘other’ (Beck and Grande,
2007)
SOCIAL
Personal and social development
Some of the literature highlights the personal, social
development, objectives and outcomes for individuals arising
from student mobility.
The reasons for student mobility, or the outcomes as a result of
that mobility, cannot be reduced to economy policy or political
objectives (see Kenway and Fahey, 2008). Mobility motivations
may well conflict with, and undermine, official policy.
Little evidence to date as to the extent of the personal and social
development of those working in the receiving organisations
(cosmopolitanism at home). Tendency to see ‘knowledge’ and
‘pedagogy’ of the receiving institution as ‘culturally fixed’ (see
Singh, forthcoming). Extends Western modernity.
ECONOMIC
CAPITAL
OUTCOMES
OF
MOBILITY
PROJECTS
SOCIAL
CAPITAL
POLITICAL
CAPITAL
CULTURAL
CAPITAL
“Policy rationales for exchange [mobility] are never
the direct result of what any particular
administration wishes, but rather a composite of
individual motives, institutional linkages, and
national objectives, all of which may come together,
or challenge each other at different times” (Snow,
2008).
Combinations of ‘capitals’ mobilised to secure the
re/production of uneven geography of social relations
Education as new ‘services’ sector (Kelsey, 2009)
Education as soft power/foreign policy (Nye 1990)
Transnational capitalist class (Sklair, 2005)
Brain drain and circulation in global division of labour – (Nunn 2005,
Saxenian, 2006)
Networks of private authority (Cutler, 1999)
New state-building projects (Robertson, 2009)
Global positional good (Brown, 2000)
Extension of Western modernity (Mignola, 2003)
Denationalisation of the state and mutations in citizenship and
sovereignty (Sassen, 2006; Ong 2006)