Abstract
This chapter focuses on PhD students’ mobility and migration, a relatively unexplored topic in literature. Specifically it revolves around the motivations and expectations of 27 young PhD students at Catalan universities, their reasons for migration, their personal and labour transitions, their evaluation of the migration process and the role of the city of Barcelona as an attractive place for living and studying. Perhaps unexpectedly, migration motivations are not always associated with a clear decision to do a doctorate, but they relate to other reasons, such as the attractiveness of the city of Barcelona. Arrival in Barcelona is a point of rupture which, in some cases, coincides with leaving the family home. Thus, there are complex multiple processes associated with migration: emancipation from family, entry into a doctorate and adaptation to a new country. From that perspective, the city is perceived as a vital kaleidoscope with multiple edges that allows for a wide variety of experiences and exchanges. The chapter so analyses the use and appropriation of everyday spaces of students, in the framework of a temporary migration. Since migration occurs in a crucial time in their lives corresponding to a learning period in a city with different potentialities and constraints from their place of origin, immigrants’ everyday practices and experiences may be “released” in a new territory. This positive scenario becomes gloomy and dark for the future due to the lack of opportunities in Catalan universities (yet it is accepted that geographical mobility is a feature of the current university job market).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Baláz V, Williams AM (2004) ‘Been there, done that’: international student migration and human capital transfers from the UK to Slovakia. Popul Space Place 10(3):217–237
Beine M, Noël R, Ragot L (2013) The determinants of international mobility of students. Economix Working Paper 26. Retrieved 15 Nov 2014, from http://economix.fr/pdf/dt/2013/WP_EcoX_2013-26.pdf
Castells M (1996) The rise of the network society. The information age: economy, society and culture, vol 1. Blackwell Publishers, Malden
Castles S, Davidson A (2000) Citizenship and migration: globalisation and the politics of belonging. Macmillan, London
Conradson D, Latham A (2005) Friendship, networks and transnationality in a world city: antipodean transmigrants in London. J Ethn Migr Stud 31(2):287–305
Creswell JW (1998) Qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five traditions. Sage, Thousand Oaks
Crouch M, McKenzie H (2006) The logic of small samples in interview based qualitative research. Soc Sci Inf 45(4):483–499
Favell A (2001) Migration, mobility and globaloney: metaphors and rhetoric in the sociology of globalization. Glob Netw 4(1):389–398
Findlay AM (2011) An assessment of supply and demand-side theorizations of international student mobility. Int Migr 49(2):162–190
Frändberg L (2014) Temporary transnational youth migration and its mobility links. Mobilities 9(2):146–164
Hannam K, Sheller M, Urry J (2006) Editorial: mobilities, immobilities and moorings. Mobilities 1(1):1–22
Haverig A (2011) Constructing global/local subjectivities. The New Zealand OE as governance through freedom. Mobilities 6(1):103–123
Hazen HD, Alberts HC (2006) Visitors or immigrants?: international students in the United States. Popul Space Place 12(3):201–216
Holdsworth C (2009) ‘Going away to uni’: mobility, modernity, and independence of English higher education students. Environ Plan A 41(8):1849–1864
Holdsworth C, Morgan D (2005) Transitions in context: leaving home, independence and adulthood. Open University Press, Buckingham
Hopkins PE (2010) Young people, place and identity. Routledge, London
Iredale R (2001) The migration of professionals: theories and typologies. Int Migr 39(5):7–26
Kennedy P (2010) Mobility, flexible lifestyles and cosmopolitanism: EU postgraduates in Manchester. J Ethn Migr Stud 33(3):465–482
King R, Raghuram P (2013) International student migration: mapping the field and new research agendas. Popul Space Place 19(2):127–137
King R, Ruiz-Gelices E (2003) International student migration and the European ‘year abroad’: effects on European identity and subsequent migration behavior. Int J Popul Geogr 9(3):229–252
Ley-Cervantes M (2012) Stuck in the middle: home-making strategies of Mexican middling migrants. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid. PhD thesis
Mendoza C, Ortiz A (2006) Hacer las Américas: Migrantes españoles de alta calificación en la ciudad de México. Doc Anàl Geogr 47:93–114
Ortiz A, Mendoza C (2008) Vivir (en) la Ciudad de México: Espacio vivido e imaginarios espaciales de un colectivo de migrantes de alta calificación. Lat Am Res Rev 43(1):113–138
Raghuram P (2013) Theorising the spaces of student migration. Popul Space Place 19(2):138–154
Sheller M, Urry J (2006) The new mobilities paradigm. Environ Plan A 38(2):207–226
Smith MP (2001) Transnational urbanism: locating globalization. Blackwell, Malden
Smith RC (2006) Mexican New York: transnational lives of new immigrants. University of California Press, Berkeley
UNESCO (2014) Global flows of tertiary-level students. UNESCO, Paris. Retrieved December 3, 2014, from http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education
Urry J (2007) Mobilities. Polity Press, Cambridge
Waters J, Brooks R (2011) ‘Vive la différence?’: the ‘international’ experiences of UK students overseas. Popul Space Place 17(5):567–578
Weber RP (1990) Basic content analysis. Sage, Newbury Park
Wiles J (2008) Sense of home in a transnational social space: New Zealanders in London. Glob Netw 8(1):116–137
Williams A, Hall CM (2002) Tourism, migration, circulation and mobility: the contingency of time and place. In: Hall CM, Williams AM (eds) Tourism and migration: new relationships between production and consumption. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, pp 1–52
Zelinsky W (1971) The hypothesis of the mobility transition. Geogr Rev 61(2):219–249
Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to the interviewees for their time and patience.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mendoza, C., Ortiz, A. (2016). Student on the Move: Academic Career and Life Transitions of Foreign PhD Students in Barcelona (Spain). In: Domínguez-Mujica, J. (eds) Global Change and Human Mobility. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0050-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0050-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-0049-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-0050-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)