Transnational Academic Mobility to Japan

This book addresses agency and habitus development of migrant academics in Japan and reveals the complexity of international academic mobility in East Asian contexts. It addresses differentiated transnational academic mobility routes and route-confined capitals and dispositions, the effect of stratified social networks and network embeddedness on international academic mobility, and the effect of unequal globalization and the asymmetrical internationalization of international academic mobility.The book highlights the roles of transnationally stretched social network development and network embeddedness along life trajectories, locating them as critical infrastructures of mobilities and identifying an array of individual social network building and maintenance strategies and principles. It illustrates how familial, educational, academic and social networks across borders facilitate and channel flows of capitals and resources vital for academic performance and upward academic mobility of migrated academics. It draws on a range of theoretical frameworks of Bourdieusian theory of sociology, transnationalism and qualitative social network analysis. The research is based on 26 case studies of migrant scholars in Japan, using narrative inquiry and qualitative social network analysis. The work provides multiple implications for practitioners, policy makers and researchers who seek answers to the sustainability of the internationalization of higher education in Asia Pacific and emerging higher education hubs.

Yifeng Hong concluded his Ph.D. in Education at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to his doctoral studies, he was an English lecturer at Rikkyo and Waseda universities in Tokyo, Japan for five years. He also taught ESL for immigrants in the U.S. for three years before relocating to Japan. He holds a M.S.Ed. in TESOL (PENN) and a B.A. in English (CSUST). Hugo Horta is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong. He developed scholarly work in the United States, The Netherlands, Japan, and Portugal during his PhD studies and postdoctoral position. He also worked outside academia, as Advisor to the Portuguese Secretary of State of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, and as the Portuguese National delegate to the European Research Area Steering Committee on Human Resources and Mobility. His main topics of interest refer to academic research processes, outputs and outcomes (including research agendas and research productivity), academic mobility and knowledge dynamics, and career trajectories of PhD holders. He is currently one of the Editors-in-Chief of Higher Education, a leading journal of higher education studies, and sits in the advisory/editorial boards of several international higher education journals.