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Between a ‘student abroad’ and ‘being from Latvia’: inequalities of access, prestige, and foreign-earned cultural capital

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posted on 2018-10-30, 14:18 authored by Aija Lulle, Laura Buzinska
This paper visualises tertiary-level students who study abroad as simultaneously both international students and members of an emerging diaspora. Coming from a country (Latvia) which is peripheral and relatively poor by European standards, students go abroad for multiple reasons not necessarily directly connected with study (e.g. family reasons, labour migration); yet their evolving diasporic status is instrumentalised by the Latvian government which wants them to return and contribute to the country’s development. Based on 27 in-depth interviews with Latvian students and graduates who have studied abroad, our analysis focuses on three interlinked dimensions of inequality: access to education at home and abroad; the varying prestige of higher education qualifications from different countries and universities; and the inequalities involved in getting recognition of the symbolic and cultural capital that derives from a non-Latvian university. Within a setting of neoliberal globalisation and conflicting messages from the homeland, students and graduates are faced with a challenging dilemma: how to balance their materialistic desire for a decent job and career with their patriotic duty to return to Latvia.

Funding

Centre for Diaspora and Migration Research and the State Research Programme EKOSOC.LV 5.2.4.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

Volume

43

Issue

8

Pages

1362 - 1378

Citation

LULLE, A. and BUZINSKA, L., 2017. Between a ‘student abroad’ and ‘being from Latvia’: inequalities of access, prestige, and foreign-earned cultural capital. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43 (8), pp.1362-1378

Publisher

Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group (© Informa UK Limited)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2017-05-05

Notes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 05/05/2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1300336

ISSN

1369-183X

eISSN

1469-9451

Language

  • en

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