Internal migration, stepping into the academic field, and talking to Pierre Bourdieu: a critical autoethnography

Abstract

This critical autoethnography interprets my internal migration experience in China. Using Bourdieu’s capital, field and habitus toolkit, I investigated my cultural capital transformation and habitus formulation when being educated in secondary schools and universities after internal migration to the city. Taking my lived experience as an example, the article illustrates the challenges of disadvantaged social groups in cultural capital exchange and the challenges of developing and re-­assembling habitus influenced by the doxa in the education field. The study highlights that the reproduction of the cultural capital of rural-to-urban migrant students is restricted by the rule of the urban education field. The article also suggests further research on the educational experience of different sub-groups of students with internal migration backgrounds.