ABSTRACT
There is a burgeoning academic literature on international student mobilities. As the name suggests, ‘mobilities’ is a central concept, inferring the ways in which students are mobile across national borders and their broader social implications. However, we argue that whilst research over the past decade has conceptualised ‘mobilities’ primarily in terms of capital accumulation and social (re)production, constructive alternatives to this conception are emerging. This chapter attempts to go beyond a ‘capital’ framework by reviewing different ways of exploring ‘mobilities’ in research on international students. Four distinct, but related, bodies of work are identified that productively engage and mobilise the notion of ‘mobilities’, in relation to (i) migration infrastructure; (ii) multi-scalar, multi-site mobilities; (iii) temporalities and (iv) politics and ethics. In so doing, the chapter advances a research agenda on international students and their mobilities in different forms.
