“I Post, therefore I Become #cosmopolitan”: The materiality of online representations of study abroad in China

Abstract

Drawing on social media content created by Western-situated transnational students as well as two international branch campuses in China, this article scrutinises the textual and visual rhetoric made available by transnational students and international branch campuses for public consumption. Particularly, it describes the ways in which intranational branch campuses and transnational students co-produce, perform, and curate cosmopolitan sensibilities through social media. Theoretically, this paper proposes the analytical lens of materiality as one way to understand the narrative strategies employed by international branch campuses to construct China as a unique and desirable destination for international education, and by transnational students from North America and European countries to exhibit cosmopolitan practices within domains of their everyday life in China.

Recruiting international students: Analysing the imaginative geographies of three urban encounters

“…Relatedly, recent work by Lee (2020) has analysed social media use and imagery of students overseas and revealed a ‘performed and curated cosmopolitanism’ (p. 10) – effectively sharing their urban experiences and influencing others to consider the same. When shared with friends and followers these images have the power to begin the process of founding powerful imaginative geographies of place and experience, particularly given that research shows how important social media can be in terms of creating expectations of travel overseas (Amaro et al, 2016; Narangajavana et al, 2017).…”

Negotiating dignity in public geography: The ethics of public engagement in pandemic times

“…All of this is not to suggest that these social‐media‐based interactions were necessarily straightforward or beneficial for those engaging in them. The performance of individual and collective identities through social media is inevitably a complex and contingent process (Lee, 2020 ). While not free of uneven power relations, contradictions, or tensions, the social media interactions nonetheless helped decentre the project website as the place where participants were to exhibit their stories.…”

International Students and Alternative Visions of Diaspora

“…A similar tendency to favour internationally educated graduates in the private sector workplace ensures that a historical reverence for a Western, English-medium education continues, despite the fact that, over the past few years, China's attempts to attract international students to its higher education system have been highly successful. China ranks third behind the US and the UK for numbers of international students educated globally (Lee, 2020). This would suggest that China is deploying a complex 'strategy' when it comes to knowledge diasporas and international education; seeking a resident population comprised of overseas education graduates and locally educated foreigners and a locally educated, domestic population -the best of all worlds.…”