Understanding the International Student Mobilities of Contemporary UK Students: Reconstrucions, Geopolitics, and Changing Mobilities in the Brexit Era

Description

The Brexit referendum resulted in large-scale concern surrounding how the UK would navigate its withdrawal from the EU, its systems, and how it would reconsider its place in the world. The Brexit negotiation period provided the UK with the opportunity to reframe its geopolitical outlook, a process in which International Student Mobility (ISM) and exchange became massively embroiled. This concluded with extensive changes to the funding opportunities and goals of student exchanges with the conclusion of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement in late 2020. This paper evaluates international student exchanges and experiences to construct an understanding of the space and purpose of contemporary study abroad, through evaluating its foci at the scale of students. This paper adds to the conversation surrounding the wider reconstructions of ISM in recent years, and how this is embodied by students. This paper questions the decision-making and agency of students in their mobilities amid these policy reconstructions of ISM and changes to the funding pathways available to them. This paper centres on 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews, which used visual storytelling methods, to evaluate the actual lived experiences of contemporary mobile students, to understand their construction of the process of student mobility and how this, and their broader political outlook, is shaped by their experience of being mobile for a period of their HE studies, and how this is enacted in the contemporary post-Brexit space.

Period	28 Aug 2024
Event title	The RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2024
Event type	Conference
Location	London, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International