Highly skilled migration and the negotiation of immigration policy: Non-EEA postgraduate students and academic staff at English universities

Mavroudi, Elizabeth; Warren, Adam P.

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.08.008

Cited by 49 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Rather than enjoying frictionless transfers within a multinational firm, middling transnationals are more likely to have to navigate the receiving country legal system and labour market on their own, and to deal with the uncertainty and constraint of temporary contracts, visas, and changing migration laws (Robertson and Runganaikaloo, 2014;Mavroudi and Warren, 2013). Instead of maintaining an elite status established prior to, and enhanced during and after migration, this literature finds considerable evidence of occupational downgrading or unemployment (Rutten and Verstappen, 2013).…”

Section: Students As 'Middling Migrants'mentioning

confidence: 96%

Elite or middling? International students and migrant diversification

Luthra

Platt

2016

Ethnicities

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Student migrants from former sending regions now form a substantial share of non-EU migration flows to Europe. These flows represent the convergence of extensive internationalisation of higher education with increasing restrictions on family and labour migration. This paper provides the first examination of student migrants' early socio-cultural and structural integration by following recently arrived Pakistani students in London over an 18 month period. We use latent class analysis to identify both elite and two 'middling' types -middle class and network-drivenwithin our student sample. We then ask whether these types experience different early sociocultural and structural integration trajectories in the ways that the elite and middling transnational literatures would suggest. We find differences in structural, but less in socio-cultural outcomes.We conclude that to understand the implications of expanding third country student migration across the EU, it is important to recognize both the distinctiveness of this flow and its heterogeneity. [150 words]

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Section: Students As 'Middling Migrants'mentioning

confidence: 96%

Elite or middling? International students and migrant diversification

Luthra

Platt

2016

Ethnicities

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“…Unlike previous research on the relationship between immigration policies and highly skilled migration, which predominantly has focussed on how states seek to attract highly skilled migrants through adjustments of their immigration and settlement policies (Khoo 2014;Koslowski 2014;Shacher 2006), this paper shifts the focus to highly skilled professionals' experiences of instances of decelerated movement as they try to cross borders, enter new labour markets, and settle in the destination country. With the exception of Mavroudi and Warren's (2013) work on highly skilled migrants in the UK's higher education sector, highly skilled professionals' experiences of immigration policy have received little attention. From the perspective of academic migrants, visa application processes appeared unnecessarily protracted and complicated.…”

Section: Temporal Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this is beyond the scope of this paper since none of the respondents had been in Sweden long enough to apply for citizenship. The concept of waiting is thus central to exploring the experiential dimension (see Griffiths 2014;Mavroudi and Warren 2013;Warren and Mavroudi 2011) of living within such temporally thick borders. While waiting has been described, for example, both as an active practice and an experience filled with meaning (Gasparini 1995;Gray 2011;Jeffrey 2008, Mountz 2011, the kind of waiting that is explored in this paper has more in common with Gasparini's (1995, 31) conceptualisation of waiting as "blockage of action".…”

Section: Temporal Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living within temporally thick borders: IT professionals’ experiences of Swedish immigration policy and practice

Axelsson

2016

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

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This paper challenges the claim that highly skilled professionals are offered almost seamless mobility and a comprehensive set of rights. Focussing on highly skilled professionals in Sweden's information technology industry, it argues that just like the lower skilled, the highly skilled may experience a range of insecurities to do with their immigration status. It explores these insecurities by conceptualising border crossing as a temporal process that begins with the submission of a work permit application and ends with permanent status (or migrant departure) and which, consequently, spans several years. More pointedly, the paper demonstrates that some highly skilled migrants experience several moments of waiting in relation to their admission, labour market access and settlement. These moments of waiting have spatial and temporal consequences in terms of temporary losses of mobility rights, elongated pathways to citizenship, insecurity of presence and feelings of living in limbo. Importantly, the paper shows that the practices of government institutions are every bit as important as legal frameworks in producing these moments of waiting and that it is therefore necessary to extend the analysis of migration management beyond policy analysis in order to more fully appreciate the situation of the highly skilled.Keywords: highly skilled migration; migration management; borders; time; waiting IntroductionSelective migration policies that favour the immigration of the highly skilled are proliferating. It is widely held that governments in Europe and beyond design immigration policies to attract talented and experienced professionals, offering the highly skilled almost seamless mobility and a comprehensive set of rights including the right to family reunification, spousal access to the labour market, and privileged routes to settlement (e.g. Boeri 2012;Chaloff and Lemaitre 2009;Gabriel and Pellerin 2008;Koslowski 2014;Menz and Caviedes 2010;Ong 1999;Shachar 2006). In this paper, I draw on the case of highly skilled professionals working in the information technology Accepted version 2 (IT) industry in Sweden -a country that introduced an employer-led labour migration policy in December 2008 which has been described as the most liberal among the OECD countries (OECD 2011) -in order to question the claim that the highly skilled are offered seamless mobility and access to labour markets and civil and social entitlements. I argue that the highly skilled may experience a range of insecurities to do with their immigration status, in particular under so called demand-driven programmes based on employer selection, which do not offer permanent status upon arrival. In such ways, while higher skilled migrants undoubtedly tend to enjoy relatively privileged mobility, employment and social rights, they can nonetheless face similar experiences to their lower skilled counterparts who are increasingly channelled into temporary migrant worker programmes that often set migrant workers onto paths of return or circular The notion of tem...

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“…While in the UK research on student mobility has been substantial over the last decade (Madge et al, 2014;Mavroudi and Warren, 2013;Christie, 2007), in Spain there are few studies (Pineda et al, 2008;Vidal, 2003), and there is still no specific literature on the mobility of international students. Therefore, in this time of mobility, the question of uneven experiences of student mobility is essential to determine the different life-course strategies of EE undergraduates in the UK and Spain.…”

Section: Conceptualising the Research Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uneven mobility experiences: Life-strategy expectations among Eastern European undergraduate students in the UK and Spain

Marcu

2015

Geoforum

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a b s t r a c tThis article looks at the uneven mobility experiences of Eastern European (EE) undergraduate students within the European Union (EU) as a fundamental aspect of human intra-European mobility. It addresses the issue of student mobility by focusing on two samples of Romanian and Bulgarian undergraduates studying in the UK and Spain, after the EU enlargement towards the East. Based on 70 in-depth qualitative interviews, the study evaluates the motivations, experiences and expectations of students and their families in the context of life-course trajectories. I argue that the socio-economic situation of the country of origin, the different strategies used by EE students and their families, and the country they choose for study overseas -the UK or Spain -create uneven mobility and influence their future life-strategy mobility after graduation. The main thematic findings, that is, mobility as a platform for permanent migration and family reunification, uncertain mobility as a tool for competition, and mobility for return, show the relation between the reasons why students study overseas and subsequent mobility aspirations. The conclusions highlight the need to integrate mobile students into the study of mobility as pivotal actors in the global circuit of mobility who favour both host and origin societies.

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Highly skilled migration and the negotiation of immigration policy: Non-EEA postgraduate students and academic staff at English universities

Cited by 49 publications

References 52 publications

Elite or middling? International students and migrant diversification

Elite or middling? International students and migrant diversification

Living within temporally thick borders: IT professionals’ experiences of Swedish immigration policy and practice

Uneven mobility experiences: Life-strategy expectations among Eastern European undergraduate students in the UK and Spain

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