Access to education has long been the reason for migration and mobility. This contribution, which focuses on a reflexive identity project of a Turkish woman trying to realize her educational goals, is part of an ongoing interdisciplinary multi-sited research project containing six sub-studies (comprising Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Myanmar/Burma, Indonesia, Singapore, Nepal, India, Malaysia and Thailand). The overarching aim of the project is to study transnational mobility of higher education within Asia from the perspective of the individual. Through a bottom-up perspective, and with life story as method, the study pays attention to transnational mobility and the way it influences new “global citizens” in Asia (Doherty & Singh, 2005). The transnational perspective (Vertovec, 1991) draws attention to trans-boundary mobility in which individuals, through daily activities and social, religious, economic, and political relations create social fields that transcend national borders (Levitt & Glick Schiller, 2004). Youth is seen as a trans-national and political category in relation to social spaces and structures (Marginson & Sawir, 2005). The use of social media is central. The concept of social transnational fields is applied rather than viewing nation states as independent and autonomous (Gargano, 2009). Within the fluidity of globalisation the concept of ‘eduscapes’ can be used for schools/education across the world with increasingly common structures, values and educational processes. In this context young people are negotiating culture-framed pasts, the complex present and contingent futures. The project has the following, joint, research questions:

1. What transnational fields, values and views on education direct and are created through different study-choices and strategies?
2.  How does the individual talk about “home country” and “host country” in his/her narrations?
3.  What role does social and cultural group belonging, e.g. ethnicity, cast, religion and gender, play for different choices and strategies?
4. What kind of negotiations regarding different strategies in relation to e.g. family, relatives, village, or region do individuals talk about?
5.  How do current gender structures influence female and male students’ stories about education? What similarities, differences, overlaps and shifts can be detected?
6. What personal experiences and strategies does the individual highlight in his/her story?
7. Through his/her educational journey, what possibilities and what obstacles does the individual see for the future?

Theoretically the project draws inspiration from cultural-, migration-, ethnicity- and gender studies (e.g. Appadurai, 1991; Kell & Gillian, 2008; Phoenix & Pattynama, 2006; Yuval-Davies, 2006). In this paper we will especially discuss the concept of capital (Bourdieu, 1977), but also use sociology of emotions when discussing aspects of identity (Scheff, 1990). In the paper especially one young Turkish woman will tell about her background and experiences; being an example of student mobility within Asia and struggling for attending the European educational arena through applications for postgraduate studies at a European university. The student’s educational journey has been difficult and demanding within Turkey with many obstacles with all her family involved. She has spent four years in Malaysia at an international university for a master thesis and is now back in Turkey engaged with trying to get access to postgraduate education in Europe. In the project as a whole there are many students talking about trying to reach Europe through their studies abroad in Asia. 

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