The Future of Cross-Border Academic (Im)Mobilities - (Bloomsbury Higher Education Research) (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

This open access edited collection brings together reflections on the fast-changing and crisis-ridden global context and develops new ways of conceptualising academic mobilities, and immobilities, against a backdrop of a conflicted and precarious future for global higher education. The result is a set of vivid cutting-edge contributions, some of which take a global view and others which explore a country perspective, including China, France, Malaysia, Philippines, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam, and more.

The book foregrounds critical approaches to academic mobility, with topics covered including blockages to mobility in the context of geopolitical tensions and the upsurge of national particularism and nativism, the intersection of academic (im)mobilities and power, political subjectivities and race, class and gender. Traditional understandings of academic mobility as physical mobility from global South to North are questioned as exclusionary and alternative models of mobility are offered. These include those appropriate to post-colonial national and regional contexts, those responsive to the changing needs of students, academics and their communities, those using online modes as well as those involving physical transfers of persons, and those about the mobility of knowledge as well as people and learning.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.

Review Quotes

"This book takes an unflinching look at global student mobility, where some enjoy privilege and opportunity while others are forced to move or struggle simply to survive. It confronts hard truths about power, access, and higher education today." --Jenny Lee, Ph.D. Vice President for Arizona International and Dean of International Education Professor of Higher Education Arizona International THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

"This is an impressive book, showcasing and drawing together the work of contributors from a wide range of countries and systems. It turns a spotlight on academia, and does not shy away from addressing difficult - yet pressing - societal issues. It is a vibrant and vital book and an essential read for those interested in the future of academic institutions and how they intersect with (im)mobilities, politics and society." --Johanna L. Waters (Professor of Human Geography, University College London)

"Over the past few decades, the idea of academic mobility has become entrenched in the discourses of international higher education. Given the rise of contemporary populism and nationalism, technological advancements, environmental crises, geopolitical tensions and intensifying social divisions, this timely book offers a range of critical essays that demonstrate the need to rethink the modalities of academic mobility in higher education. It examines the shifting conditions under which the norms of mobility and immobility are constituted, rendering them desirable, on the one hand, and possible, on the other." --Fazal Rizvi Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"If research universities have long relied on academic mobility, this impressive collection unpacks its dynamics, politics and impacts. Across nineteen richly detailed chapters, we learn about the need to theorise immobility as much as mobility, the consequences of conflicts for forced mobilities, and the importance of mobility justice for the future of universities. This is essential reading for all those committed to more equitable and sustainable forms of academic knowledge-making." --David Mills, University of Oxford

About the Author

Aline Courtois is Reader in the Department of Education at the University of Bath, UK, and co-editor of the journal International Studies in Sociology of Education. She holds a PhD in Sociology from University College Dublin and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She is the author of Elite schooling and social inequality: privilege and power in Ireland's top private schools (2018).

Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford (emeritus) and Professor of Higher Education at the University of Bristol, UK. He is also joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education. He is an Honorary Professor at Tsinghua University in China, a Professorial Associate of the University of Melbourne, Australia, a Fellow of the British Academy, the Academies of Social Sciences in the UK and Australia, and a Member of Academia Europaea.

Catherine Montgomery is Professor of Education and Deputy Executive Dean Global at Durham University, UK. Catherine is Editor for Compare: Journal of International and Comparative Education. She is Affiliated Faculty in the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation at Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, and Affiliated International Expert for the China Research Network at Monash University, Australia.

Ravinder Sidhu is Associate Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research interests are in higher education, critical studies of internationalisation and postcolonial studies.