Cash cows, backdoor migrants, or activist citizens? International students, citizenship, and rights in Australia

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, the intersection of education and migration policies in Australia has shifted international students from transient consumers to potential citizens. This article analyses responses to the ‘problem’ of international students as consumers, workers, and migrants, particularly the conceptualization of their rights and protections, and the ways students have been positioned as both passive subjects and activist citizens. The article provides a theoretical review of academic, government, community, and media responses to international students in general and the consequences of the education-migration nexus in particular. It argues that discourses of human rights and consumer rights have become increasingly interconnected in these debates. This analysis adds to the emerging literature on changing conceptions of rights and citizenship in neoliberal contexts, and also illuminates the social and political consequences of the education-migration nexus in Australia. This will have resonance for countries who have implemented a raft of similar policies.

Keywords:

• International students
• Australia
• migrants
• rights
• citizenship
• discourse

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Peter Phipps and Anne McNevin for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shanthi Robertson

SHANTHI ROBERTSON is a Programme Director in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning at RMIT University.