Mobility and desire: international students and Asian regionalism in aspirational Singapore

Abstract

Higher education is playing an important role in Singapore's most recent cycle of modernization: to re-make itself into a global city through the continued accumulation of capital, ‘talent,’ and knowledge. This paper is a critical analysis of the accounts of a group of international students enrolled at the National University of Singapore, a key strategic site in Singapore's bid to reconfigure itself into a knowledge hub. We discuss international student negotiations of Singapore's global city imaginings against a policy context that foregrounds a desire for regional students in the state's imagination and aspiration. In inquiring what political work international education is called upon to do to further Singapore's progressive developmentalism, we open up an analytical space for understanding the global city as both a cosmopolitan metropolis that is continually being refashioned by the desires and aspirations of new student actors, and a place of transit from which students leave having acquired valuable navigational capacities.

Keywords:

• global city
• difference
• internationalization
• transnational mobilities
• globalization
• higher education

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the critical input provided by anonymous referees, which has helped to refine the arguments presented in this paper.

Funding

This research was fully supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education (Academic Research Fund Tier 2 grant) [grant number MOE 20089-T2-1-101]. The project name is Globalising Universities and International Student Mobilities. The usual disclaimers apply.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This research was fully supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education (Academic Research Fund Tier 2 grant) [grant number MOE 20089-T2-1-101]. The project name is Globalising Universities and International Student Mobilities. The usual disclaimers apply.