Transnational postgraduates: navigating academic trajectories in the globalized university

ABSTRACT

This article explores the academic trajectories of transnational postgraduates. We draw upon interrelated theories of globalization and transnational social fields to frame the globalizing social and educational contexts in which international students navigate their lives and careers after earning doctoral degrees. We draw on in-depth interviews where transnational postgraduates’ voices are placed at the center of the findings, and we explore how their background, journey, and environment simultaneously shaped them as well as transformed the spaces they inhabited. We highlight how the movement of transnational postgraduates is not simply a transfer from one physical location to another, but rather that the movement itself constitutes and structures a new space of identification and of belonging and global imagination.

KEYWORDS:

• International students
• transnational scholars
• academic mobility
• postgraduates

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Notes on contributors

Sherrie Lee

Sherrie Lee, Ph.D. is the Senior Advisor of Operational Policy at the Tertiary Education Commission in New Zealand. She earned her doctorate from the University of Waikato. Her writing focuses on empowering newcomers to navigate transitions in their social and cultural environments. Her research explores multicultural and transnational communities through sociocultural theories and multimodal analytical approaches.