ABSTRACT

In this chapter I argue for the role of the nation state and locality in knowledge mobilization and educational research in relation to mobility and transnationality. I will engage critically with the literature that over-emphasizes the ‘global’ dimension of research and knowledge and simultaneously overlooks the role that the nation state and the sense of national identity play in mobile global sites of knowledge construction and reconstruction. While acknowledging the limitations associated with narrow and rigid perspectives shaped by the nation state and locality discourses, I will demonstrate that, together with the need to understand these two notions more creatively and openly, it is also necessary to be critical of the over-enthusiasm about globalization and its power over the nation state, particularly in terms of what knowledge, responsibilities and contributions may mean to different mobile researchers. Drawing on my own autoethnography, I will discuss how my sense of being a mobile Vietnamese working in Australia and operating internationally has shaped my research interests as well as my approach to research and knowledge. I will address two areas in which mobility and transnationality have been playing an important role: mobility and the sense of being Vietnamese/sense of belonging/sense of a particular locality; and mobility and my endeavours to introduce more ‘Eastern’ knowledge and philosophies to the ‘West’. I will also discuss what I mean by ‘making contributions’ at the national, international and global levels and suggest ‘brain gain’ rather than ‘brain drain’ and in what ways mobility is not a given, a face value notion, but a site of struggle and negotiation in itself when it comes to knowledge construction and identity making.