POSTPONED | New Date: 8 November | Original Date: 10 May

This event is part of the School of Education's Bristol Conversations in Education research seminar series. These seminars are free and open to the public.

Hosted by the Comparative and International Research in Education (CIRE)

Speaker: Professor Dr. Phan Le Ha, Lead of the International and Comparative Education Research Group (ICE)

Transnational education-driven mobilities produce a particular kind of academic diaspora in global higher education that is often valued by both home and host countries but in ways that vary and serve different interests and aspirations. These interests and aspirations are usually tied up with the contrasting perspectives on brain drain and brain circulation. With the promotion of worldwide globalization-driven internationalization of higher education, brain circulation and the associated discourse of connectivity have increasingly dominated policy and scholarly debates. The discourses of brain circulation and connectivity are further supported by technological advancements and numerous education-driven mobility programs introduced at all levels. While evidence of gain, circulation, and connectivity remains limited, there are concerns about capacity, knowledge and intellectual dependency, and academic inequalities between more developed higher education systems and those in developing countries. At the same time, varied privileges attached to academic diasporas and educational mobilities can cause tensions and hierarchies within a higher education system. The academic diaspora politics is located within this complex, hierarchical, and dynamic cultural, political, and economic space. As a way forward, grounded/home-based transnationality and a shift in discourse are discussed as a possible productive counter position to help reduce inequalities. Examples from Vietnam and several African countries as well as their respective transnational academic diasporas are provided to demonstrate the nuanced academic diaspora, brain drain, and brain circulation discourses.

PHAN Le Ha (PhD) is Senior Professor at Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education and Head of the International and Comparative Education Research Group (ICE) at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. She also holds an Honorary Professorship in the IOE - Culture, Communication & Media, University College London, UK. Prior to Brunei, Phan was tenured Full Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa and Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She has taught and written extensively on English language education, identity-language-culture-pedagogy, global/international/transnational higher education, international and development education, academic mobilities, and sociology of knowledge. Her research work has covered many contexts in Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Asia-Pacific and the Gulf regions.

Contact: halephan@hawaii.edu or leha.phan@ubd.edu.bn

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