Structural Embeddedness in Transnational Social Fields: Personal Networks, International (Im)Mobilities, and the Migratory Capital Paradox

In this article we focus on individuals’ structural embeddedness in transnational social fields (TSFs) and examine how this is related to patterns of international mobility. The main argument is that the structure of TSFs matters for (im)mobility trajectories, and thus all actors (migrants, non‐migrants, and returnees) need to be examined as a whole to obtain a deeper understanding of the role of social networks in processes of transnational mobility. Taking the case of Romanian migrants in Spain as a TSF connecting their place of origin (Dâmbovița in Romania) with their destination (Castelló in Spain), we analyze survey data for 303 migrants, non‐migrants, and returnees, sampled through an RDS‐like binational link‐tracing design. We then categorize types of personal network using an international mobility scale to assess the degree of structural embeddedness in the TSF. An important contribution is the rigorous operationalization of TSF and assessment of the level of migratory capital of each individual. Our results reveal that migratory capital is not always linked positively with high mobility patterns and that its role is strongly related to the overall composition and structure of the TSF.

English-medium education revisited

Connected to the growing internationalisation of higher education in the world, the English language is increasingly being used as medium of teaching and learning, thereby contributing to the roles of English for transnational mobility, career development, access to new information and research, and the facilitation of global communication. While the label English-medium instruction (EMI) has been widely used in the last two decades to capture this phenomenon, we consider it an unfortunate choice in that it falls short in conceptualising the complexity of English in twenty-first-century higher education. First, EMI solely focuses on English, ignoring the increasing multilingual realities of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide; secondly, EMI does not explicitly include reference to higher education, even though learning and teaching at the tertiary level is in crucial ways different to lower levels of education. Thirdly, EMI talks about “instruction” and thus views education as a non-relational process where teachers teach and learners learn. From this unilateral perspective, the co-construction of knowledge as a key feature of higher education remains unacknowledged. Against this backdrop, our paper sets out to argue for the conceptual need for an alternative label, known as English-medium education in multilingual university settings (or EMEMUS). This label, we argue, portrays more accurately and specifically the growing multilingual reality of current internationalised HEIs, the complex and highly situated roles that English plays in relation to other national and local languages, and the importance of interpreting education as a social-constructivist process. Moreover, EMEMUS will enable HEIs to re-examine comprehensively the range of activities that respond locally to global phenomena, from policy issues (e.g. regulations, implementation and management) to university practices (e.g. teaching, research, administration and teacher professional development) in an inclusive and multifaceted manner. Ultimately, this comprehensive conceptualisation aims to redefine English and internationalisation in a much more nuanced light.

Transnational Mobility and Global Health. Traversing Borders and Boundaries

Reseña del libro Transnational Mobility and Global Health.Traversing Borders and Boundaries de Peter H. Koehn

Italian youth mobility: The case for a Mediterranean model of ‘family-centred’ mobile transitions

This article seeks to advance our understanding of contemporary transnational youth mobility, drawing on the concept ‘mobile transitions’ to explore scholarly approaches to the mobility practices of young Italians moving abroad. We present a critical literature review of the intersections of migration, youth and transition studies to argue that the literature on youth transnational mobility currently features two contrasting models comprising a ‘transitions-focused’ Global South model and an ‘experiential-focused’ Global North model. This bifurcation fails to account for emergent regional models of mobility that may help to sharpen scholarly understandings of a new generation of youth ‘on the move’. We propose an alternative model positioned somewhere along the spectrum between the Global North and Global South models, which we define as the Mediterranean model of ‘family-centred’ transnational youth mobility. This model reflects aspects of both privileged, experiential youth migrations, which tend to undervalue the impact on transitions to adulthood, and economically driven youth migrations, which tend to focus more directly on the economic dimensions of youth to adulthood transitions. The Mediterranean model highlights more broadly how mobility enables and shapes transitions, which are simultaneously driven by both economic imperatives and individual experiential desires, and mediated through family and culture.

Tourism and Intercultural Communication

Tourism as a global economic activity utilizes communication to create and represent cultural differences between the tourist and the Other through various media and spaces, despite the fact that such differences have become weaker and deterritorialized due to transnational mobility and globalization. Tourism communication reinscribes ethnocultural stereotypes, and this action is often motivated by a quest for cultural authenticity in the Other. The Other commodifies its cultural stereotypes with various discursive and semiotic tools and is often motivated by the exchange value of its cultural identity. Most previous scholarship on global tourism communication focused on North-South tourism mobilities, based on the stereotypical image of the tourist as an English-speaking white male. The recent demographic shift in world tourism presents us with a different picture. There are touristic encounters between people who move from one part of the Global South to another, and English does not necessarily serve as the default language of communication in these exchanges. There is also a shift in theoretical orientation in understanding what intercultural communication entails. Instead of treating culture and interculturality as essentially determined by broad variables such as nationality or ethnicity, attention is now given to the process that individuals engage in and perform via communication. Although there are some scholars who view intercultural communication in tourism as a positive force in raising people’s cross-cultural awareness, recent scholarship is mostly informed by a critical lens in that tourism is used to (re)produce, maintain, and justify relationships of inequality between the traveler and the local. A critical focus on intercultural communication provides important insights into our understanding of contemporary tourism and its situatedness within broader societal structures of power and ideologies.

Muslim like us: mobilizing minority identities in popular Australian entertainment media as sites of transnational representation

In the context of sustained interest in the mobilization of Muslimness beyond generic and hence immobile identity tropes, I consider how Australian mainstream television and film productions work to challenge and disrupt essentialist representations of Muslimness. Case studies feature two television series and a feature film, examined through the lens of transnational mobility theory and in the context of mediated anti-racism. The productions I discuss, ‘The Spice Journey’, ‘The Mosque Next Door’, and ‘Down Under’, all turn on intra- and inter-communal mobility of Muslim identities. They are part of a larger trend in popular media productions in current Australian film and on television, which reacts to Islamophobic sentiments in the country by drawing attention to embodied multiple subjectivities. Findings suggest that Australian entertainment media can add meaningful input to the diverse and complex negotiations of culture and identity among Muslims in Australia but may sidestep other forms of racism like anti-Indigeneity in the process.