Rethinking International Skilled Migration Regions and Cities Series

In today?s global knowledge economy, competition for the best and brightest workers has intensified. Highly skilled workers are an asset to companies, knowledge institutions, cities, and regions as they contribute to knowledge creation, innovation, and economic growth and development. Skilled migrants cross, and many times straddle, international borders to pursue professional opportunities. These spatial relocations provide opportunities and challenges for migrants and the cities and regions they inhabit.

How have international skilled migratory flows been formed, sustained, and transformed over multiple spaces and scales? How have these processes affected cities and regions? And how have multiple stakeholders responded to these processes? The contributors to this book bring together perspectives from economic, social, urban, and population geography in order to address these questions from a myriad of angles. Empirical case studies from different regions illuminate the multiscaled processes of international skilled migration. In particular, the contributions rethink skilled migration theories and provide insights into: the experiences of highly skilled labor migrants and international students; issues related to transnational activities and return migration; and policy implications for both immigrant source and destination countries. It also charts a future research agenda for international skilled migration research.

Rethinking International Skilled Migration provides a comparative perspective on the experiences of skilled migrants across the local, regional, national, and/or global scale, paying particular attention to spatial and place-based dimensions of international skilled migration. It will be of interest to scholars and professionals in international migration, regional and national development policymakers, international businesses, and NGOs.

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Contributors

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction: Rethinking International Skilled Migration: A Placed-based and Spatial Perspective

MICHELINE VAN RIEMSDIJK AND QINGFANG WANG

PART I

International Student Migration

2 Producing International Student Migration: An Exploration of the Role of Marketization in Shaping International Study Opportunities

ALLAN FINDLAY, RUSSELL KING, AND ALEXANDRA STAM

3 Complex Decisions: Factors Determining International Students’ Migrations

HEIKE ALBERTS

4 European Mobile Students, (Trans)National Social Networks, and (Inter)National Career Perspectives

CHRISTOF VAN MOL

5 Mental Health and the Student-migrant Experience: Sources of Stress for Norwegian Quota Scheme Students

SCOTT BASFORD

6 Chinese Student Migrants in Transition: A Pathway from International Students to Skilled Migrants

WAN YU

7 Internationalization, Localization, and the Eduscape of Higher Education in the Global South: The Case of South Africa

ASHLEY GUNTER AND PARVATI RAGHURAM

PART II

Transforming Cities, Transforming Lives

8 "London is a Much More Interesting Place than Paris": Place-comparison and the Moral Geographies of Highly Skilled Migrants

JON MULHOLLAND AND LOUISE RYAN

9 High-skilled Migrants, Place Ties, and Urban Policymaking: Putting Housing on the Agenda

JÖRG PLÖGER

10 Homogenizing the City: Place Marketing to Attract Skilled Migrants to Stavanger and Kongsberg

MICHELINE VAN RIEMSDIJK

11 Expatriate Mobility, Firm Recruitment, and Local Context: Skilled International Migration to the Rapidly Globalizing City of Dubai

MICHAEL C. EWERS AND RYAN DICCE

PART III

Transnational Lives and Return Migration

12 Exodus, Circulation, and Return: Movements of High-skilled Migrants from India in a Transnational Era

ELIZABETH CHACKO

13 Immigration Policy Change and the Transnational Shaping of Place

MARGARET WALTON-ROBERTS

14 Experiences of Returned Chinese Migrants in Higher Education Examined through a Case Study

QINGFANG WANG, LI TANG, AND HUIPING LI

15 Diverging Experiences of Work and Social Networks Abroad: Highly Skilled British Migrants in Singapore, Vancouver, and Boston

WILLIAM S. HARVEY AND JONATHAN V. BEAVERSTOCK

16 Conclusion: Themes, Gaps, and Opportunities for Rethinking International Skilled Migration

HARALD BAUDER

Index

Micheline van Riemsdijk is J. Harrison and Robbie C. Livingston Associate Professor of Population Geography at the University of Tennessee, USA.

Qingfang Wang is an Associate Professor of Geography and Public Policy at the University of California Riverside, USA.