This symposium contains four papers on the theme of student mobility in higher education. Globally all areas of life have been profoundly affected by advances in technology, highlighting more than ever the interdependent nature of the world. Spatial limitations on what is possible economically have been largely removed, with economic institutions becoming less than ever constrained by national boundaries in terms of both workforce and potential markets. Universities have responded to the challenges and opportunities provided by these shifts in location of social, cultural and economic capital by positioning themselves as international institutions that are in the business of the production of highly marketable and actively responsible global citizens.

The terms internationalization and global citizen are generally used unquestioningly, and yet what they mean can alter significantly depending on a variety of factors. In this symposium we offer a critical analysis of the role of universities in the production of global citizens through a focus on student mobility. Our starting point is a critical analysis of the spatial terms used to describe global locations. ‘It is through language that we come to an understanding of our world, and it is through language that our world is constructed. We therefore need to consider critically what and how we learn about our world (including ourselves)’ (O’Brien, 1994:36). Far from being neutral, the terms north, south, east and west took on a particular significance during the western ‘age of discovery’ when European expansion led to mapping the new and old worlds. Maps are texts and texts are representations with Mercator’s projection being the most common. As Janks (2009) argues, where one stands affects what one ‘sees’, and early map makers positioned Europe at the centre with all other areas being located somewhere between this and the periphery.

Postcolonial theorists (Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1985; Spivak, 1999) have shown the enduring legacy of these early representations of the world and, as presenters, our perspectives are each influenced by where we are located spatially, politically and culturally and our relation to the histories of these locations. Equally our social positions – the intersectionalities of class, race, gender and so on – affect where we stand literally, socially and ideologically; these positionalities shape the way we construct texts and the way we read them. Our contention is that far from being neutral, student mobility policies and practices are highly political and the subjectivities and ideologies that underpin them need to be acknowledged. The risks in remaining unacknowledged are that practices in student mobility will continue to divide the world (McQuaid, 2009) in ways that are unjust.

In each paper we therefore consider our own positionalities and subjectivities as teachers and researchers, as well as addressing the following questions: What positions are universities creating? Who is seen as ‘normal’? Is difference seen as abnormal and something that needs fixing? How does the naming of different types of student mobility (North-South study visits; South-North international students; international service learning) affect how they are positioned? Who is setting the agenda? How is culture understood? How are identities created and societies perceived? Whose lenses are used in these constructions? Who and what is constructed as legitimate? What is shown and what is hidden? In so doing we aim to problematize constructions of student mobility as spatial movements North-South, South-North, and to explore these as socio-cultural and political mobilities that are profoundly influenced by a variety of ideologies.

Janks, H. (2009). Literacy and Power. New York: Routledge-Taylor and Francis, New York. Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture, London: Routledge Spivak, G. (1999). A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a critique of the vanishing present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Said, E. (1985). Orientalism, Middlesex: Penguin. O’Brien, J. (1994). Critical Literacy in an Early Childhood Classroom; a progress report. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. Vol 17(1), 36-44. McQuaid, N. (2009). Learning to ‘un-divide’ the world: The legacy of colonialism and education in the 21st century. Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices, 3(1), 12-25.