Abstract
Despite its popularity as a research topic, student and graduate mobility remains relatively undertheorized, especially in regard to explaining how and why certain individuals move abroad for work and study. Acknowledging this deficit, in this chapter we continue development of a line of inquiry introduced in our prior work: the idea that mobility decision-making can be conceptualized as a reflexive process. Rather than being passive or involuntary, it is hypothesized that outward mobility involves the use of agency and social networks as practical and imaginative resources. Building on ideas introduced by previous authors (e.g. the work of Margaret Archer), we also acknowledge the importance of the ‘internal conversation’ dimension of life planning and the significance of externalized dialogues taking place in education and the workplace. Echoing Anglophone youth sociology, mobility choices are thus viewed as individualized, albeit bounded by positive and negative factors relating to obstacles and opportunities.
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Notes
- 1.
An earlier example of denying the complexity of practicing mobility in our work concerns the impact of the 2008 economic crisis on mobility decisions. In contrast to popular media narratives at this time that stressed the use of mobility as a means of escaping economic hardship, it was found that moving abroad had become harder to contemplate due to factors such as a decline in social and economic resources and a lack of suitable opportunities abroad (see Cairns 2017a).
- 2.
As noted in a previous book (Cairns 2014, pp. 27–28), the concept has had many different usages and definitions, being part of a long conceptual tradition within social theory, passing through the work of theorists including Merton, Popper, Bourdieu and Foucault. See, for instance, Giddens Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (1991) and, with Beck et al., Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (1994).
- 3.
The experience of moving abroad for the highly qualified has its own unique dimensions, including the ability to generate new skills and competences which can then be put into practice on return or during other mobility exercises (see also Hu and Cairns 2017). This latter study, conducted among graduates in China who had previously studied in Norway, emphasised the value of learning new skills and values while spending time abroad, as well as the acquisition of tertiary level education qualifications.
- 4.
Also studied in our previous work has been reflexive learning within internationalized learning environments, principally the European Commission supported Erasmus programme. However, while Erasmus can be discussed in regard to its reflexive functioning, this relates more to the educational experience than mobility decisions, which tend to be institutionally rather than individually mediated. For this reason, we cannot codify ‘Erasmus’ as an exemplar of reflexive mobility but it is useful to note the existence of reflexive practices in these learning zones. Through these socially interactive learning processes, which take place inside and outside the classroom, a form of internationalized employability is generated among participating students, alongside a more obvious form of intercultural understanding, attributes that can in theory be used as instrumental resources throughout a subsequent career, the most obvious example being enhancing foreign language fluency (Cairns 2017b; Cairns et al. 2018).
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Cairns, D., Sargsyan, M. (2019). Reflexive Mobility. In: Student and Graduate Mobility in Armenia. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19613-4_2
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