ABSTRACT
Literature that examines the ‘middling’ mobilities of young people, particularly from Asia, often situates international students as belonging to a global middle-class who possess the resources and aspirations to study abroad (e.g. Thomas, 2017; Sancho, 2015; Martin, 2018). This approach to conceptualising class in relation to transnational mobility undervalues the role that class status plays in how educational mobilities are imagined and experienced. I contend that international students occupy multiple ‘in between’ spaces in which status can be made and re-made as young people transition through various phases and stages of mobility. Within these ‘in between’ spaces, class status is not immobile, but is changeable according to specific circumstances. Drawing on 80 qualitative interviews conducted in Mumbai, India, I argue that attending to localised and heterogeneous manifestations of class can reveal different and often uneven experiences of international education. I contend that there are two distinct ‘localised micro-categories of class’ that relate to international education in the Mumbai context. The ‘South Bombay (SoBo) elite’ seek to maintain their existing privilege via international education. For this group, studying overseas is a rite of passage that involves actively seeking temporary downward class mobility, experienced via relative ‘hardships’, which facilitates self-actualisation. Having acquired ‘the foreign stamp’, the SoBo elite then return to Mumbai to resume their privileged position in Indian society. Conversely, ‘suburban strivers’ pursue international education with a mind to achieve upward socio-economic mobility via foreign degrees, workplace experience in a Western country and secure long-term employment. This group essentially seeks to leave their localised class status behind when they become transnationally mobile, because the very act of being mobile is a marker of privilege that distinguishes them from peers at home. However, this group is vulnerable to experiencing unwanted downward mobility if they return to India prematurely.
