Gunjan Sondhi

Africa

Writing International Students Migration in Africa
2020 (British Academy Writing Workshop Programme, UK)

PI: Gunjan SONDHI (Open University, UK)
Co-I:  James JOWIE (ANIE, Kenya)
Co-I:  Markus BREINES (LSHTM, UK)
Co-I:  Parvati RAGHURAM (Open University, UK)

Context

African students are the most mobile students in the world – 5.8 per cent of African students enrolled in higher education undertook study outside of their home country (Kritz 2015). Moreover, it is expected that cross-border student flows will intensify due to rising proportion of young people alongside a shortage of university places (Woldegiorgis and Doevenspeck 2015). Despite this, international student migration (ISM) in Africa has received limited attention.

Writing Academic Paper Series

Due to disruptions caused by COVID-19, the in-person workshop was postponed till a later date, and an online series entitled ‘writing academic paper’ was put in place starting January 2021.  The recordings of the 2020-2021 webinars is available through the OU Migration Group Youtube channel.

Workshop (postponed till 2022 due to COVID-19)

This workshop seeks to bring together emerging knowledge on international student migration in Africa and is an opportunity for early career African scholars to develop their academic writing skills to enable them to publish in international English language journals.

There will be a session to develop a proposal for a Special Issue with papers from the workshop. There will also be a session on grant writing for early career scholars, with a focus on identifying funders and collaborative funding applications. This is a unique opportunity for scholars working on international student migration in Africa to meet and establish a platform for future partnership and research.

Themes

We invite contributions that explore international student migration (including distance education and branch campuses) within or into Africa from other parts of the world. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Patterns of student movement: case studies of international student experiences, analyses of student movement patterns.
  • Drivers and outcomes of ISM: political mobilisation, students’ cultural practices (such as food, music, and so on), formations of groups and networks, Emerging language practices).
  • Drivers and outcomes of return/onward migration: Post-education return, secondary migration
  • Inequalities impacting ISM: gender, nationality, class, race/ethnicity, etc
  • Migration industry/migration processes: international student policies, visa regulations and legal aspects of student migration.
  • ISM and finance/fees: cost of study and living, strategies for affording and paying fees.
  • Impact of ISM on sending/receiving countries/regions: relationships between local and international students, family relations, and so on
  • African educational/knowledge hubs: regional hubs, existing and shifting patterns of international student migration
  • Any other aspects of international student migration in Africa.

Language

The working language of this workshop will be English.