Beyond Diaspora: The Lived Experiences of Academic Mobility for educational researchers in the European higher education area

Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of the lived experiences of academic mobility for three educational researchers, at various stages of their research career, from different European national contexts. Lived experiences were explored by examining the metaphors used by each educational researcher to convey their experiences of academic mobility. These metaphors were then explored in further depth via individual interviews. The purpose of this analysis is to extend the debate around academic mobility, which often fails to differentiate between academic mobility and mobile academics. In addition, this chapter explores the impact of the desire for, and experience of, academic mobility on the complex, hybrid and changing process of academic identity formation. In conclusion, the chapter questions whether conventional ideas of research in the social sciences and humanities are essentially connected in one way or another to the nation state, or whether research is fundamentally an international occupation.