M W H Leung
Biographic Data
| ID | 18035 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M W H Leung |
| GIVEN NAMES | M W H |
| FAMILY NAME | Leung |
| SIGNATURE | LEUNG M W H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8507-5375 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 243 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Socio-ecological risks, socio-economic opportunities, and community participation in lithium mining: A “Learning from elsewhere” review
As the global transition to a low-carbon economy intensifies, demand for lithium has surged, positioning lithium-rich countries as hotspots for extraction. The rush for lithium raises concerns about whether its extraction process will follow due diligence to safeguard ecological integrity, uphold local communities’ rights to participation, and equitable benefit-sharing. Although existing scholarship has documented these issues across diverse cont…
Dynamic repertoires of resistance against Beijing’s heritage-led gentrification
This paper examines the evolving resistance repertoires within Beijing’s heritage-led gentrification. Drawing on in-depth interviews and digital observation, it traces how residents’ practices shift across changing power configurations, revealing the fluid and spectrum-like dynamics between everyday and rightful resistance under authoritarian governance. In everyday encounters with newcomers, residents rely on verbal complaints, informal disrupti…
Invisible displacement of residents: Rethinking ‘voluntary relocation’ in Beijing’s heritage-led regeneration
This study extends the notion of invisible displacement from migration studies to gentrification in order to reveal the hidden forms of dispossession in authoritarian contexts. It conceptualises invisible displacement as operating across three interrelated dimensions: the ambiguity between voluntary and involuntary relocation, the stigmatisation and marginalisation of socially invisible groups, and the contested politics of compensation. This fra…
Special Issue: ‘Just’ International Development
The relationship between justice and international development has long been contentious. Activists and scholars persistently challenge what is carried out in the name of development: for whom, by whom, and at whose expense? Their critiques expose how conventional development practices often entrench injustice rather than redress it. This special issue builds on this critical tradition by discussing how justice is being redefined within contempor…
Climate-induced redistribution of people is not inevitable
Climate-induced redistribution of people is not inevitable, Boas, Ingrid, Sterly, Harald, Farbotko, Carol, Hulme, Mike, Benveniste, Hélène, Schewel, Kerilyn D, Bettini, Giovanni, Borderon, Marion, Hoffmann, Roman, van der Geest, Kees, Durand-Delacre, David, Selby, Jan, Wrathall, David J, Baldwin, Andrew, Benítez Cortés, Ailín, Bukari, Kaderi N, Bunchuay-Peth, Simon, Capisani, Simona, Codjoe, Samuel Nii Ardey, Dahm, Ruben, Dewan, Camelia, Dijstelb…
Governance shifts in the contested regeneration of Beijing’s historical neighborhoods
Infrastructuring arrival and homemaking in Covid‐19 times: Experiences of newcomer Chinese students in Dutch cities
This paper examines the experiences of newcomer Chinese students in Dutch cities during the COVID‐19 pandemic, building on three strands of literature on (i) arrival infrastructure, (ii) homemaking and (iii) the nature of conflating digital and offline spaces. Based on qualitative research findings from two research projects, the paper illustrates resilience among the students in infrastructuring their arrival and making a new home in an unfamili…
Betwixt and between in an ‘unreadable city’: Chinese students' urban citizenship and belonging in pandemic-era Amsterdam
As newcomers to Amsterdam, Chinese international students arriving during 2020 – 2021 had to navigate a peculiar urban landscape shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic. Rather than the pandemic's direct impacts, we highlight the unique spatiotemporal context it mediated – a period characterized by its liminality, or in-betweenness, further marked by ambiguity and uncertainty. The study draws on narrative interviews to investigate the students' urban exp…
Wandering at the crossroads: Gendered mobility aspirations in the study-to-work transition of Chinese graduates of Dutch universities
This paper discusses the gendered mobility aspirations, decisions and experiences of fresh Chinese graduates of Dutch universities. Our analysis draws on semi-structured interviews and the “story completion” method with 25 Chinese graduates of Dutch universities, complemented with three interviews with the parents of such students in China. We use three vignettes to show the complexity of gendered mobility aspirations in the study-to-work transit…
“Welcoming Spaces”: Migration and New Communities in Marginalised Regions
The presence of migration in non-urban areas is mainly related to the paradoxical coexistence of both restrictive migration policies and a proliferation of welcoming initiatives. These initiatives are aimed at (co-)creating “welcoming spaces” and are often driven by older residents and migrant people but can equally be the outcome of initiatives by local governments, NGOs, and businesses. This contribution introduces the potentialities and limits…
Not-so-subtle subtleties: Undocumented migrant (in)visibility, (im)mobility and Dutch public spaces as sites of embodied racialization
We explore the nuances of living while undocumented in the Netherlands, focusing on the processes of (in)visibility and (im)mobility in the public sphere. We conceptualize (in)visibility as dialectical and multilayered, with relational, political, strategic and processual dimensions. (Im)mobility isconceptualized as a resource and is interlinked with (in)visibility. Both concepts are understood to be defined by social relations, which necessitate…
Children's Bodies Are Not Capital: Arduous Cross-Border Mobilities between Shenzhen and Hong Kong
This article foregrounds and unpacks the significance of education in the migration of children in contemporary Asia, drawing principally on research undertaken in Hong Kong and across the border with Mainland China (Shenzhen). Using the example of cross-boundary schooling, the authors explore the role played by children in emergent transnational topologies and reflects on the significance of this for understandings of “migration.” The authors ar…
Paradoxes of Inclusion: Adverse Effects of Inclusive Interventions in Northern Ethiopia
The involvement of smallholders in various inclusive business models (IBMs) is being widely promoted in Ethiopia. The inclusion, exclusion and distribution effects of IBMs must be better understood, however, in order to make them more impactful. This study, which was carried out in three districts in northern Ethiopia, employed a mixed methods approach. Our results show that inclusion and exclusion are both complex and multidimensional. A focus o…
Making ways for ‘better education’: Placing the Shenzhen-Hong Kong mobility industry
Tens of thousands of children living on Mainland China cross the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for a ‘better education’ every day. A well-oiled industry is in place to manage, facilitate and control this education mobility field. It involves schools, diverse businesses and non-governmental organisations that, in articulation with the Chinese and Hong Kong states, stimulate and regulate the movement of people, materialities, ideas and prac…
Bridging home and school in cross-border education: The role of intermediary spaces in the in/exclusion of Mainland Chinese students and their families in Hong Kong
Over the last two decades the Hong Kong government has made considerable investments to develop the city into a regional education hub, with ‘diversification’ as a key aim. The vision is, however, delinked from the tens of thousands of young children residing in Shenzhen who commute to Hong Kong for school daily. These children embody differences that are considered undesired and their social exclusion has been widely reported. Taking a spatial p…
Geographies of education: Cross-border schooling between Shenzhen and Hong Kong
In the context of increasing disciplinary interest in ‘geographies of education’, this article looks at the particular phenomenon of cross-border schooling (CBS), wherein children are involved in daily boundary crossing for education and engage in a (usually) arduous commute. Here, we draw upon a recent research project involving CBS at the Shenzhen–Hong Kong border. We consider three aspects of this border crossing that were significant in the p…
Schools as spaces for in/exclusion of young Mainland Chinese students and families in Hong Kong
Around 30,000 children living in Shenzhen, Mainland China cross the border to Hong Kong to attend school every day. This paper focuses on the school as a key meso-level organisation that mediates macro-level policies and micro-level everyday life experiences among these children and their families. We advocate a relational, spatial perspective, conceptualising schools as webs of intersecting physical, social and digital spaces, where differences …
Rethinking knowledge and skills in migration: A spatial–temporal perspective
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study
The commodification of social relationships in agriculture: Evidence from northern Ethiopia
Rhythms, flows, and structures of cross‐boundary schooling: State power and educational mobilities between Shenzhen and Hong Kong
This paper explores the phenomenon of cross‐boundary schooling (CBS), where more than 30,000 children undertake a daily, checkpoint‐crossing commute to school and back again, over the Hong Kong–Shenzhen border. It elaborates on the notion of “state assemblage” to consider how the power of the state (in this case, both the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong authorities) manifests in CBS and, in particular, how the state attempts to exert con…
The Exclusive Nature of Inclusive Productive Employment in the Rural Areas of Northern Ethiopia
Inclusiveness, with its emphasis on productive employment, has become central in development policy. From this perspective, unwaged-work is condemned for not being sufficiently productive; that is, for failing to lift incomes above a poverty threshold. However, insights from the sociology of work reveal a range of unwaged activities that are potentially highly productive in their contribution to self-reliance. The article explores whether these a…
Rethinking Migration in the 2030 Agenda: Towards a De-Territorialized Conceptualization of Development
While the 2030 Development Agenda was being prepared, Europe experienced a massive inflow of refugees. In response, many western European donors pointed to the need to bring about ‘development’ in the regions of origin, in an attempt to halt the inflow of people. As such, development is often conceptualized as a place-bound process that focuses on enabling people to achieve a better quality of life ‘at home’, implying that migration is an indicat…
Degrees of value: Comparing the contextual complexities of UK transnational education in Malaysia and Hong Kong
This paper reveals the complex diversity that underpins ostensibly similar transnational education programmes (TNE), through a comparison of UK TNE in Malaysia and Hong Kong. It draws on data from two different yet cognate studies on the role of UK universities in delivering higher education in Asia. Some fine-grained and informative differences between the ways in which ‘value’ in TNE is constructed in different host contexts is revealed. The pa…
Tracing the Causal Loops Through Local Perceptions of Rural Road Impacts in Ethiopia
One country, two systems’, ‘one city, two systems’: Citizenship as a stage for politics of mobility and bordering practices in Hong Kong
Drawing on the notion of ‘politics of mobility’ and conceptualization of borders, this paper illustrates the peculiar, controversial and discriminatory citizenship policy, practice and discourse in Hong Kong. Under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ constitutional principle, Hong Kong is separated from the China Mainland by an administrative border and exercises a separate residence rights regime. This paper highlights the tension produced by Hong Ko…
Read ten thousand books, walk ten thousand miles’: Geographical mobility and capital accumulation among Chinese scholars
International movements of scientists and researchers have become more common in the increasingly inter‐connected global knowledge economy. Geographic mobility is often perceived as a key to academic excellence and career advancement by scholars, especially in advanced economies. In China, where international geographical mobility is a newly‐gained privilege after the advent of the Open Door Policy, academics belong to one of the most mobile subs…
Domesticating transnational education: Discourses of social value, self‐worth and the institutionalisation of failure in ‘meritocratic’ Hong Kong
This paper explores the changing spatialities of education in response to processes of internationalisation, through the lens of transnational education ( TNE ). It argues that rather than producing outward‐looking education, international credentials are becoming ‘domesticated’ – that is, they form an indistinguishable feature of existing local education systems. The paper explores the importance of discourses of meritocracy and the production o…
A Colourful University Life? Transnational Higher Education and the Spatial Dimensions of Institutional Social Capital in Hong Kong
Transnational higher education represents a lesser‐known aspect of the international education industry. In relation to the UK, transnational education is a booming business. British qualifications are offered in 217 countries outside the UK, representing in excess of 388,000 students in total. These students are fascinating precisely because they are acquiring an ‘international education’ in situ , raising a number of pertinent questions relatin…
Immobile Transnationalisms? Young People and Their in situ Experiences of ‘International’ Education in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, the number of international degree programmes available locally to students has proliferated in recent years, and British universities are the largest provider of so-called ‘transnational education’ in the territory. This paper draws on the findings of a qualitative project examining British degree programmes offered in Hong Kong, and their implications for local young people. In particular, it explores the fact that the vast majori…
Engaging a temporal–spatial stretch: An inquiry into the role of the state in cultivating and claiming the Chinese knowledge diaspora
Of corridors and chains: Translocal developmental impacts of academic mobility between China and Germany
This paper examines the impact of transnational geographical mobility among Chinese and German scholars using the concepts of 'development corridors' and 'development chains'. A temporal-spatial analysis of two case studies – (1) a multi-generation actor-based network of social scientists and (2) the vibrant connections between the Department of Geography at the Sun Yat-Sun University of Guangzhou and various German institutes – illustrates how s…
Degrees of value: Comparing the contextual complexities of UK transnational education in Malaysia and Hong Kong
This paper reveals the complex diversity that underpins ostensibly similar transnational education programmes (TNE), through a comparison of UK TNE in Malaysia and Hong Kong. It draws on data from two different yet cognate studies on the role of UK universities in delivering higher education in Asia. Some fine-grained and informative differences between the ways in which ‘value’ in TNE is constructed in different host contexts is revealed. The pa…
Unsettling the Yin-Yang Harmony: An Analysis of Gender Inequalities in Academic Mobility among Chinese Scholars
This paper highlights the gendered nature of international academic mobility. Drawing on a qualitative research on Chinese scholars who have professional mobility experiences overseas, specifically in Germany, the paper demonstrates how the practice, meanings and perceptions of academic mobility are highly gendered. Research findings highlight how gender, intersecting with other axes of differences, shapes the power geometries of the transnationa…
Young People and the Reproduction of Disadvantage through Transnational Higher Education in Hong Kong
This paper examines the role of transnational higher education in reproducing local patterns of disadvantage in Hong Kong. Specifically, it considers the expectations and experiences of local students undertaking British degree programmes, drawing on the findings of a recent qualitative research project. In this paper, we argue that through the introduction of so-called 'top-up' programmes, British universities are providing degree-level educatio…
Rhythms, flows, and structures of cross‐boundary schooling: State power and educational mobilities between Shenzhen and Hong Kong
This paper explores the phenomenon of cross‐boundary schooling (CBS), where more than 30,000 children undertake a daily, checkpoint‐crossing commute to school and back again, over the Hong Kong–Shenzhen border. It elaborates on the notion of “state assemblage” to consider how the power of the state (in this case, both the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong authorities) manifests in CBS and, in particular, how the state attempts to exert con…
Rethinking Migration in the 2030 Agenda: Towards a De-Territorialized Conceptualization of Development
While the 2030 Development Agenda was being prepared, Europe experienced a massive inflow of refugees. In response, many western European donors pointed to the need to bring about ‘development’ in the regions of origin, in an attempt to halt the inflow of people. As such, development is often conceptualized as a place-bound process that focuses on enabling people to achieve a better quality of life ‘at home’, implying that migration is an indicat…
Not-so-subtle subtleties: Undocumented migrant (in)visibility, (im)mobility and Dutch public spaces as sites of embodied racialization
We explore the nuances of living while undocumented in the Netherlands, focusing on the processes of (in)visibility and (im)mobility in the public sphere. We conceptualize (in)visibility as dialectical and multilayered, with relational, political, strategic and processual dimensions. (Im)mobility isconceptualized as a resource and is interlinked with (in)visibility. Both concepts are understood to be defined by social relations, which necessitate…
These are not the best students’: Continuing education, transnationalisation and Hong Kong's young adult ‘educational non-elite’
This paper examines the under-explored relationship between young people’s transitions to \nhigher education (HE) and the opportunities afforded by transnational education (TNE) \nprogrammes, with a focus on understanding the contemporary situation in Hong Kong. A \nfascinating association has developed, over the past decade, between the expansion of TNE \nin the territory and the government’s commitment to providing ‘continuing education’. We \n…
Making ways for ‘better education’: Placing the Shenzhen-Hong Kong mobility industry
Tens of thousands of children living on Mainland China cross the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for a ‘better education’ every day. A well-oiled industry is in place to manage, facilitate and control this education mobility field. It involves schools, diverse businesses and non-governmental organisations that, in articulation with the Chinese and Hong Kong states, stimulate and regulate the movement of people, materialities, ideas and prac…
Industrial Heritage: Valorising the Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of Another Hong Kong Story
This paper challenges current perspectives on Hong Kong heritage that are based predominantly on a dichotomous juxtaposition of traditional Chineseness vis‐à‐vis post‐colonial romanticism, and argues for a deeper appreciation of its industrial history and identity. Textured narratives are proposed that highlight the socio‐economic relationships that were/are essential components of the industrial (hi)story. Specifically, the paper identifies the …
Bridging home and school in cross-border education: The role of intermediary spaces in the in/exclusion of Mainland Chinese students and their families in Hong Kong
Over the last two decades the Hong Kong government has made considerable investments to develop the city into a regional education hub, with ‘diversification’ as a key aim. The vision is, however, delinked from the tens of thousands of young children residing in Shenzhen who commute to Hong Kong for school daily. These children embody differences that are considered undesired and their social exclusion has been widely reported. Taking a spatial p…
On being Chinese: Locating the Chinese self in Germany
An individual's identity or concept of self shapes how he or she experiences, attaches meanings to and interacts with the world. This paper explores how overseas Chinese in Germany think of themsel
The commodification of social relationships in agriculture: Evidence from northern Ethiopia
The Exclusive Nature of Inclusive Productive Employment in the Rural Areas of Northern Ethiopia
Inclusiveness, with its emphasis on productive employment, has become central in development policy. From this perspective, unwaged-work is condemned for not being sufficiently productive; that is, for failing to lift incomes above a poverty threshold. However, insights from the sociology of work reveal a range of unwaged activities that are potentially highly productive in their contribution to self-reliance. The article explores whether these a…
Schools as spaces for in/exclusion of young Mainland Chinese students and families in Hong Kong
Around 30,000 children living in Shenzhen, Mainland China cross the border to Hong Kong to attend school every day. This paper focuses on the school as a key meso-level organisation that mediates macro-level policies and micro-level everyday life experiences among these children and their families. We advocate a relational, spatial perspective, conceptualising schools as webs of intersecting physical, social and digital spaces, where differences …
Local Development in the Context of Global Migration and the Global Land Rush: The Need for a Conceptual Update
This paper argues that global linkages, flows and circulations merit a more central place in theorization about local development. In particular, we make connections across two dominant types of global flows that shape our world tremendously: international migration and large-scale land investments. The paper compares the two hypes and underlines the similarities in their genealogy, rhetoric and push for good governance as a solution. It then map…
Introduction to the Dossier: Institutions and Skilled Mobility
Worldwide, the highly-skilled are on the move more than ever. According to recent data from the OECD and United Nations (OECD-UNDESA 2013), the number of tertiary educated immigrants in the OECD had increased by 70 per cent within one decade from 2000 to reach 27 million in 2010/11. About 30 per cent of all migrants in the OECD area were highly educated. The number of skilled migrants is likely to increase in the next years, due to faster and bet…
Transnational higher education for capacity development? An analysis of British degree programmes in Hong Kong
Drawing upon a project on British transnational education (TNE) programmes offered in Hong Kong, this paper interrogates the capacity development impact of TNE on the students, the Hong Kong Government and the programme providers. It addresses the questions: ‘What capacity is being developed in TNE operations?’ and ‘For whom?’ Our findings reveal multiple capacities at play. As TNE has been traded between British and Hong Kong universities and fa…
Power of Borders and Spatiality of Transnationalism: A Study of Chinese‐operated Tourism Businesses in Europe
This paper examines the spatiality of transnationalism and meanings of borders as displayed in the tourism business sector operated by Chinese migrants in Europe. Drawing upon empirical research conducted from 1999 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2007, it will illustrate how Chinese migrants practise transnationalism and transculturality in their entrepreneurial activities. Instead of serving simply as a bridge between their two home economies, migrants…
Governance shifts in the contested regeneration of Beijing’s historical neighborhoods
Get IT going: New ethnic Chinese business. The case of Taiwanese-owned computer rms in Hamburg
Drawing on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with Taiwanese entrepreneurs who operate mostly small- to medium-scale businesses in the computer sales sector in Hamburg (Germany), this paper brings out the diversity of 'ethnic entrepreneurship', a notion which is conventionally used almost exclusively for labour-intensive light industries and service-sector activities run by family members or co-ethnics of migrant communities. In order to und…
Keeping Compatriots on the Move: A Study of Ethnic Chinese Migrant-Owned Travel Agencies in Germany
This paper examines the tourist agency sector, a burgeoning ethnic Chinese migrant business in Germany, in relation to the concept of “mixed embeddedness.” Special attention is given to the interplay of economic, cultural and institutional factors in shaping the location and operations of travel agencies. The paper analyzes the importance of “home” as a marketable cultural product in the diaspora tourism industry and the role of these migrant bus…
On being Chinese: Locating the Chinese self in Germany
An individual's identity or concept of self shapes how he or she experiences, attaches meanings to and interacts with the world. This paper explores how overseas Chinese in Germany think of themsel
Power of Borders and Spatiality of Transnationalism: A Study of Chinese‐operated Tourism Businesses in Europe
This paper examines the spatiality of transnationalism and meanings of borders as displayed in the tourism business sector operated by Chinese migrants in Europe. Drawing upon empirical research conducted from 1999 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2007, it will illustrate how Chinese migrants practise transnationalism and transculturality in their entrepreneurial activities. Instead of serving simply as a bridge between their two home economies, migrants…
Industrial Heritage: Valorising the Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of Another Hong Kong Story
This paper challenges current perspectives on Hong Kong heritage that are based predominantly on a dichotomous juxtaposition of traditional Chineseness vis‐à‐vis post‐colonial romanticism, and argues for a deeper appreciation of its industrial history and identity. Textured narratives are proposed that highlight the socio‐economic relationships that were/are essential components of the industrial (hi)story. Specifically, the paper identifies the …
Of corridors and chains: Translocal developmental impacts of academic mobility between China and Germany
This paper examines the impact of transnational geographical mobility among Chinese and German scholars using the concepts of 'development corridors' and 'development chains'. A temporal-spatial analysis of two case studies – (1) a multi-generation actor-based network of social scientists and (2) the vibrant connections between the Department of Geography at the Sun Yat-Sun University of Guangzhou and various German institutes – illustrates how s…
A Colourful University Life? Transnational Higher Education and the Spatial Dimensions of Institutional Social Capital in Hong Kong
Transnational higher education represents a lesser‐known aspect of the international education industry. In relation to the UK, transnational education is a booming business. British qualifications are offered in 217 countries outside the UK, representing in excess of 388,000 students in total. These students are fascinating precisely because they are acquiring an ‘international education’ in situ , raising a number of pertinent questions relatin…
Read ten thousand books, walk ten thousand miles’: Geographical mobility and capital accumulation among Chinese scholars
International movements of scientists and researchers have become more common in the increasingly inter‐connected global knowledge economy. Geographic mobility is often perceived as a key to academic excellence and career advancement by scholars, especially in advanced economies. In China, where international geographical mobility is a newly‐gained privilege after the advent of the Open Door Policy, academics belong to one of the most mobile subs…
Young People and the Reproduction of Disadvantage through Transnational Higher Education in Hong Kong
This paper examines the role of transnational higher education in reproducing local patterns of disadvantage in Hong Kong. Specifically, it considers the expectations and experiences of local students undertaking British degree programmes, drawing on the findings of a recent qualitative research project. In this paper, we argue that through the introduction of so-called 'top-up' programmes, British universities are providing degree-level educatio…
Transnational higher education for capacity development? An analysis of British degree programmes in Hong Kong
Drawing upon a project on British transnational education (TNE) programmes offered in Hong Kong, this paper interrogates the capacity development impact of TNE on the students, the Hong Kong Government and the programme providers. It addresses the questions: ‘What capacity is being developed in TNE operations?’ and ‘For whom?’ Our findings reveal multiple capacities at play. As TNE has been traded between British and Hong Kong universities and fa…
These are not the best students’: Continuing education, transnationalisation and Hong Kong's young adult ‘educational non-elite’
This paper examines the under-explored relationship between young people’s transitions to \nhigher education (HE) and the opportunities afforded by transnational education (TNE) \nprogrammes, with a focus on understanding the contemporary situation in Hong Kong. A \nfascinating association has developed, over the past decade, between the expansion of TNE \nin the territory and the government’s commitment to providing ‘continuing education’. We \n…
Immobile Transnationalisms? Young People and Their in situ Experiences of ‘International’ Education in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, the number of international degree programmes available locally to students has proliferated in recent years, and British universities are the largest provider of so-called ‘transnational education’ in the territory. This paper draws on the findings of a qualitative project examining British degree programmes offered in Hong Kong, and their implications for local young people. In particular, it explores the fact that the vast majori…
Unsettling the Yin-Yang Harmony: An Analysis of Gender Inequalities in Academic Mobility among Chinese Scholars
This paper highlights the gendered nature of international academic mobility. Drawing on a qualitative research on Chinese scholars who have professional mobility experiences overseas, specifically in Germany, the paper demonstrates how the practice, meanings and perceptions of academic mobility are highly gendered. Research findings highlight how gender, intersecting with other axes of differences, shapes the power geometries of the transnationa…
Academic Mobility for Development’ as A Contested Notion: An Analysis of the Reach of the Chinese State in Regulating the Transnational Brains
This paper gauges the reach of the state in regulating the flows of academics and harnessing them for development in C hina. Drawing upon a review of policy documents, secondary data and fieldwork findings from a research project that studies the developmental impact of academic mobility among Chinese scholars active in the C hinese‐ G erman academic space, this paper challenges the ‘talents sans frontières’ notion on the one hand, and illustrate…
Introduction to the Dossier: Institutions and Skilled Mobility
Worldwide, the highly-skilled are on the move more than ever. According to recent data from the OECD and United Nations (OECD-UNDESA 2013), the number of tertiary educated immigrants in the OECD had increased by 70 per cent within one decade from 2000 to reach 27 million in 2010/11. About 30 per cent of all migrants in the OECD area were highly educated. The number of skilled migrants is likely to increase in the next years, due to faster and bet…
Engaging a temporal–spatial stretch: An inquiry into the role of the state in cultivating and claiming the Chinese knowledge diaspora
One country, two systems’, ‘one city, two systems’: Citizenship as a stage for politics of mobility and bordering practices in Hong Kong
Drawing on the notion of ‘politics of mobility’ and conceptualization of borders, this paper illustrates the peculiar, controversial and discriminatory citizenship policy, practice and discourse in Hong Kong. Under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ constitutional principle, Hong Kong is separated from the China Mainland by an administrative border and exercises a separate residence rights regime. This paper highlights the tension produced by Hong Ko…
Domesticating transnational education: Discourses of social value, self‐worth and the institutionalisation of failure in ‘meritocratic’ Hong Kong
This paper explores the changing spatialities of education in response to processes of internationalisation, through the lens of transnational education ( TNE ). It argues that rather than producing outward‐looking education, international credentials are becoming ‘domesticated’ – that is, they form an indistinguishable feature of existing local education systems. The paper explores the importance of discourses of meritocracy and the production o…
Local Development in the Context of Global Migration and the Global Land Rush: The Need for a Conceptual Update
This paper argues that global linkages, flows and circulations merit a more central place in theorization about local development. In particular, we make connections across two dominant types of global flows that shape our world tremendously: international migration and large-scale land investments. The paper compares the two hypes and underlines the similarities in their genealogy, rhetoric and push for good governance as a solution. It then map…
Rethinking Migration in the 2030 Agenda: Towards a De-Territorialized Conceptualization of Development
While the 2030 Development Agenda was being prepared, Europe experienced a massive inflow of refugees. In response, many western European donors pointed to the need to bring about ‘development’ in the regions of origin, in an attempt to halt the inflow of people. As such, development is often conceptualized as a place-bound process that focuses on enabling people to achieve a better quality of life ‘at home’, implying that migration is an indicat…
Degrees of value: Comparing the contextual complexities of UK transnational education in Malaysia and Hong Kong
This paper reveals the complex diversity that underpins ostensibly similar transnational education programmes (TNE), through a comparison of UK TNE in Malaysia and Hong Kong. It draws on data from two different yet cognate studies on the role of UK universities in delivering higher education in Asia. Some fine-grained and informative differences between the ways in which ‘value’ in TNE is constructed in different host contexts is revealed. The pa…
Tracing the Causal Loops Through Local Perceptions of Rural Road Impacts in Ethiopia
The Exclusive Nature of Inclusive Productive Employment in the Rural Areas of Northern Ethiopia
Inclusiveness, with its emphasis on productive employment, has become central in development policy. From this perspective, unwaged-work is condemned for not being sufficiently productive; that is, for failing to lift incomes above a poverty threshold. However, insights from the sociology of work reveal a range of unwaged activities that are potentially highly productive in their contribution to self-reliance. The article explores whether these a…
Rhythms, flows, and structures of cross‐boundary schooling: State power and educational mobilities between Shenzhen and Hong Kong
This paper explores the phenomenon of cross‐boundary schooling (CBS), where more than 30,000 children undertake a daily, checkpoint‐crossing commute to school and back again, over the Hong Kong–Shenzhen border. It elaborates on the notion of “state assemblage” to consider how the power of the state (in this case, both the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong authorities) manifests in CBS and, in particular, how the state attempts to exert con…
Geographies of education: Cross-border schooling between Shenzhen and Hong Kong
In the context of increasing disciplinary interest in ‘geographies of education’, this article looks at the particular phenomenon of cross-border schooling (CBS), wherein children are involved in daily boundary crossing for education and engage in a (usually) arduous commute. Here, we draw upon a recent research project involving CBS at the Shenzhen–Hong Kong border. We consider three aspects of this border crossing that were significant in the p…
Political science (34 works) · Sociology (34 works) · Geography (22 works) · Law (19 works) · Economics (18 works) · Gender Studies (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Gender Studies (14 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (14 works) · China (13 works)