Nomadic political ontology and transnational academic mobility

ABSTRACT

Transnational academic mobility is often characterized in relation to terms such as ‘brain drain’, ‘brain gain’, or ‘brain circulation’ – terms that isolate researchers’ minds from their bodies, while saying nothing about their political identities as foreign nationals. In this paper, I explore the possibilities of a more ‘nomadic political ontology’, where the body is ‘multifunctional and complex, a transformer of flows and energies, affects, desires and imaginings’ (p. 25). In this sense, academic mobility is not only the outcome of national innovation and economic competitiveness strategies, but also sets the conditions for epistemic and ontological change at the level of the individual. In this paper, I explore a personal account of the nomadic political ontology of academic mobility to exemplify the interrelationships between nationalism, academic belonging and transnationalism. My experiences as a transnational subject affect the stability and scope of my work as a policy-oriented researcher who studies the academic profession and the internationalization of higher education. My positionality in relation to my research focus is likely not unique to the field of higher education studies or educational research more broadly, which permits a wider applicability of this exploration beyond personal narrative and a particular national context. This personal reflection, guided by nomadic theory and post-structural possibilities, offers a viewpoint of the academic profession beyond the standard mobility discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic mobility
• citizenship
• highereducation
• immigration
• internationalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. My liberally minded friends in the United States shared my joy about moving to Canada, but they frequently expressed general misunderstandings about the Canadian welfare state and employment regulations that pertained to immigration. To them, the move to Canada looked easy and enviable. Phrases like, ‘You are so lucky’ both overestimated the capacities of Canadian society (Canadian health care was presumed by many of my friends to be completely free and unproblematic) and underestimated the challenges of securing a ‘good job’ in a foreign country. After a while, I gave up trying to explain this.

2. During one of my first weeks on the job, I greeted a new student, who upon learning I was from the United States said, ‘You must be glad to be here.’ The statement that I must be glad to be here (Canada) was set against the unstated idea that I must be glad not to be there (America). Again, I was confronted with the presumption of being a political and cultural exile. I simply responded, ‘Yes’.

3. I realized a few weeks into my search for housing in my new city that my realtor was not showing me all of the neighborhoods. He would say things like, ‘I don’t see you living there.’ Finally, I rented a car and drove to the places on the map that we hadn’t seen. He had been showing me mainly white neighborhoods, quite a feat in a city as ethnically diverse as Vancouver. When I asked him about race and the city, he responded, ‘Vancouver is a post-racial city.’ Oh, really? And by that, we mean … what exactly?

4. Some of my first interactions with students were quite challenging, in that they met me in the classroom with some hostility. Since my classes focus on educational systems and policy, I felt that it was important to provide some background about my educational biography, including my citizenship status and where I was educated. This opened many questions I had not anticipated, including a question about how I voted in the recent US presidential election: ‘Did you vote for George Bush?’ In the United States during the early 2000s, people rarely asked this question, as voting was seen as a private matter, despite the open political discourse in the media. I was taken aback but gathered myself enough to respond: ‘I’m a female academic working in a public university, in the field of Education, who has just moved to Canada. What do you think?’ I refused to answer the question outright but I felt strange for not meeting the standards and expectations of my students.

5. Many of my colleagues were born in countries other than Canada, typical to the profile of the Canadian professoriate. They too held loyalties to other cultures, other countries, other lives. So when one of them stated that America ‘needs you’, I was both touched and saddened by the shared struggle to affect change in our communities. As educators, we seek to make things better. How could I leave the United States now? I had been asking myself the same question.

6. As someone who had traveled abroad many times, I of course knew of the ugly American stereotype and had witnessed many occasions where the stereotype played out before my eyes. But being ‘too American’ in Canada is much more than being loud and arrogant, although that certainly qualifies. Being ‘too American’ signifies a continuum of American-ness, a scale where the less American, the better. Dial it back. Hold yourself in. Stop yourself.

7. I began to dread cocktail party conversation. I could not always ‘pass’ as a Canadian due to particular words in my vocabulary that I pronounce with an American accent. But if I avoided the words, I could pass for longer. At some point, the person I spoke to might ask a specific question that would ‘out’ me as an American. One of these questions is, ‘Where did you get your PhD?’ The answer in my case is the name of an American research university. More than once, the person who asked the PhD question actually stepped backward upon hearing my response, so visceral was the reaction. On one occasion, at a conference in Ontario, the person speaking to me just turned and walked away. Another time, my fellow party-goer turned away from me and asked our host, ‘Are there not qualified Canadians anymore?’ before moving across the room to speak to someone else.

8. At that same cocktail party, my host, a retired migrant academic, responded to the qualified Canadians remark with, ‘Depends on what you mean by “qualified.”’ I laughed a little to myself because this is such an academic answer, and so true in so many ways. Yes, it depends.

9. My institution is an upwardly mobile research intensive university, with a desire for academic superstars. An office of faculty support specialists is in place to assist with visas, work permits and permanent residency applications. I approached this office on the suggestion of my departmental office manager. However, when speaking with the staff support person, it was as if I were talking out of turn and asking for more than my fair share. I had to be put in my place. ‘We only used to do this for star faculty, you know,’ she said. Who did I think I was?

10. White Americans moving to Canada move without hyphens. Because of the invisible hegemony of whiteness, there is no such thing as a hyphenated White-American, and therefore no possibility to be a (White) American-Canadian. The nonethnic nationalist construct of ‘American’ does not lend itself as a prefix. So when a colleague said to me, ‘You will never be Canadian,’ I understood it as being intended as a statement about anti-American nationalism in Canada, but with the added territorializations of white settlerhood. It was said sympathetically.

11. Prior to the citizenship ceremony, I learned of an adapted set of lyrics to the national anthem ‘O, Canada’ that substitute ‘our home on Native land’ for ‘our home and native land’. I sing the adapted version in recognition of the historical and continuing colonization of Canada and the rest of North America.

12. The year before becoming a citizen I had the pleasure of meeting for a drink with one of my doctoral program mentors, who was in town for a speaking engagement. We laughed and shared stories and talked about our current research projects. At one point, he commented ‘You sound like a Canadian,’ noting how I had acquired the intonation of my new linguistic community. We laughed again, and I said, ‘Maybe.’ Depends on who you ask.

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Amy Scott Metcalfe

Dr. Amy Scott Metcalfe is an Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. She examines the role of research universities in society with an emphasis on research policy and the academic profession. Her scholarship has appeared in the leading journals of higher education studies in North America and internationally.