The (dis)embodiment of transnational mobilities

ABSTRACT

This article outlines a theoretical perspective attending to the embodiment of education-related migrants’ transnational mobilities as reflective of their embeddedness in the world. This argument is presented in two main parts.In the first part, it is argued that within a global discourse of increasing human capital for competitive advantage, skilled migration that follows international education – known as two-step migration – has been used by governments as a human capacity building strategy. In government-commissioned reports and studies, the dominant use of economic frameworks describes two-step migrants as rational choice makers. Such approaches produce the effect of disembodying transnational mobilities as homogeneous ‘brain flows’ across borders. However, migrants have their own pursuits and experience circumstances in relation to socio-economic, political, and cultural influences that affect their subjectivities in transnational mobilities. By building on extant research on transnationalism in the latter part of this article, this article acknowledges the embodiment of transnational mobilities through the relational aspects of migrants’ everyday lives, from forming decisions to migrate, to relocating to the host society and planning for the future. In this sense,the relationality of transnational mobilities can be theorised through skilled migrants’ engagement with the world across multiple spaces and temporalities.

KEYWORDS:

• (Dis)embodiment of transnational mobilities
• migrants’ entwinement with the world
• relationality of mobilities
• two-step migration

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Associate Professors Gloria Dall’Alba and Ravinder Sidhu at the School of Education, The University of Queensland, for giving me critical feedback on the multiple drafts of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Since 2011, Singapore’s skilled immigration scheme has been suspended for an internal review to tighten immigration laws.

2. The Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has changed its name to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) since September 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chi Hong Nguyen

Chi Hong Nguyen is currently Head of the English Language Department at FPT University, Can Tho Campus, Vietnam. His research focuses on transnational mobilities of skilled migrants, international student mobilities and Vietnam's human capacity building.