The brain rotation and brain diffusion strategies of small islanders: considering ‘movement’ in lieu of ‘place’

Abstract

The ‘brain drain’ phenomenon is typically seen as a zero‐sum game, where one party’s gain is presumed to be another’s drain. This corresponds to deep‐seated assumptions about what is ‘home’ and what is ‘away’. This article challenges the view, driven by much ‘brain drain’ literature, that the dynamic is an epi‐phenomenon of the relationship between neo‐liberal globalisation and education. Instead, the article invites a consideration of an alternative, cyclical and multiple migration model, both to properly explain at least some of the more contemporary patterns of human traffic across frontiers, as well as to posit a more diffuse, positive‐sum model of human capital flows. It does so by focusing on evidence gleaned from a set of territories that would appear, at face value, to be amongst the least likely to come up with dynamic examples of brain diffusion, brain cycles or brain rotation—small islands.