Classifications and clarifications: rethinking international student mobility and the voluntariness of migration

Abstract

ABSTRACT Linking insights from the fields of international education and migration/mobilities studies – in particular, those offered by Streitwieser [(2019). ‘International Education for Enlightenment, for Opportunity and for Survival: Where Students, Migrants and Refugees Diverge’. Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education 11: 4–9] and Bivand Erdal and Oeppen [(2018). ‘Forced to Leave? The Discursive and Analytical Significance of Describing Migration as Forced and Voluntary’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (6): 981–998] – we introduce a new approach to analysing international student mobility (ISM) as higher education, migration, and mobility intertwine in increasingly complex ways. First, we attend to the messiness of ISM’s terms, data, and practices, offering clarifications of some commonly-used terms and considerations for stakeholders. We then present our updated conceptual lens which positions ISM as a landscape structured by the interface of two continuums: (1) the discretion to move, and (2) opportunity. By better reflecting the spectrum of ISM’s voluntariness and its impact on opportunity, we highlight the ongoing reproduction, amplification, dissolvement, and restructuring of privilege within international education. Our approach also visibilises students from displaced, refugee, and forced-migrant backgrounds. Ultimately, we problematise the loose subfield of ISM and stress the need for increased interdisciplinary engagement.