Student on the Move: Academic Career and Life Transitions of Foreign PhD Students in Barcelona (Spain)

Abstract

This chapter focuses on PhD students’ mobility and migration, a relatively unexplored topic in literature. Specifically it revolves around the motivations and expectations of 27 young PhD students at Catalan universities, their reasons for migration, their personal and labour transitions, their evaluation of the migration process and the role of the city of Barcelona as an attractive place for living and studying. Perhaps unexpectedly, migration motivations are not always associated with a clear decision to do a doctorate, but they relate to other reasons, such as the attractiveness of the city of Barcelona. Arrival in Barcelona is a point of rupture which, in some cases, coincides with leaving the family home. Thus, there are complex multiple processes associated with migration: emancipation from family, entry into a doctorate and adaptation to a new country. From that perspective, the city is perceived as a vital kaleidoscope with multiple edges that allows for a wide variety of experiences and exchanges. The chapter so analyses the use and appropriation of everyday spaces of students, in the framework of a temporary migration. Since migration occurs in a crucial time in their lives corresponding to a learning period in a city with different potentialities and constraints from their place of origin, immigrants’ everyday practices and experiences may be “released” in a new territory. This positive scenario becomes gloomy and dark for the future due to the lack of opportunities in Catalan universities (yet it is accepted that geographical mobility is a feature of the current university job market).