Abstract
In the previous chapter, the idea was introduced that migration can be constructed out of an accumulation of miscellaneous mobility experiences. Through this means, young people can become migrants in a relatively tacit and unconscious manner, encapsulating a sense of flux and inherent precarity. In this chapter, we continue exploration of this theme, looking at the specific issues of migration decision-making and the means through which different mobility phases become connected, interpolating into the discussion the concept of ‘mobility capital.’ The connections between different mobility episodes are important to consider, as is the means through which one decision affects the next, making migration a concatenation of what may have otherwise been seen as separate experiences (see Samuk et al. 2021). This will be explained as a reflexive learning process, requiring young people to use their own agency and the ability to learn how to be mobile from family members, peers, educators, trainers and employers.
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Notes
- 1.
The idea of mobility and migration decisions being reliant upon sufficient levels, and the right combination, of social and economic capital is another theme explored in prior work on intra-European circulation. See especially Cairns (2014).
- 2.
Mobility capital can also be conceptualized in more abstract terms, relating to the adoption of a particular kind of cosmopolitan predisposition; in fact, Murphy-Lejeune (2002: 51) goes so far as to describe mobility capital as ‘a taste for living abroad’ possessed by a migratory elite, and less convincingly, seeing this resource as a sub-component of human capital. See also Kaufmann et al. (2004).
- 3.
- 4.
To explain this process, we have used terms like ‘reflexive mobility,’ recognizing a cause and effect relationship within life planning. As the name suggests, reflexivity is a process mediated by personal reflection: a choice is made by an actor, with the validity of that choice contingent upon a positive (societal) reception (Cairns et al. 2017: 19). If the feeling is that taking a specific mobility pathway has been a success, the journey is more likely to continue in this particular direction.
- 5.
These reflections must of course be accompanied by a major caveat concerning the actual numbers of young people willing or able to extend mobility to migration. As Czerska-Shaw and Krzaklewska (2021) remark in their chapter, only a small number of traditional Erasmus students participate in Erasmus Mundus, where there is an extremely limited number of places, which are also restricted by geo-demographic quotas. We cannot therefore say that we have arrived at a point in time were the individual construction of migration trajectories is a general experience for youth, but certain possibilities exist.
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Cairns, D. (2021). Migration Decision-Making, Mobility Capital and Reflexive Learning. In: Cairns, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Youth Mobility and Educational Migration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64235-8_4
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