Return academic migration in post-communist Russia and Ukraine: Gender, mobility, and the future of common Europe

Author(s):

Andreas Siegert(submitting)Olena Fimyar(presenting)Olga Gnydiuk(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 06 D, Academic Work and Professional Development

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-11

15:30-17:00

Room:

STD-402

Chair:

Rosemary Deem

Contribution

This paper brings together sociological, economic and gender perspectives on the study of return academic migration in Russia and Ukraine. The paper draws on the survey and interview data which were collected as parts of individual projects at the University of Hannover (February-April, 2007) and Free University Berlin (DRS-Point post-doctoral fellowship, January- June, 2012). The decision to write a joint paper came to the authors of this paper after they presented their respective projects at the ASN (Association for the Study of Nationalities) conference in 2012. The third co-author joined the team in the latest stage of data collection (January 2013) and provided invaluable assistance in conducting follow up interviews with the study participants.

The purpose of the paper is to critically examine and write a new chapter in the literature on return migration, because existing studies on migration in Europe demonstrate clear gaps in the treatment of the problem of return migration in general and a lack of a gender perspective in the analysis of return migration in particular. This salience of the studies on return migration to post-communist Europe in the European scholarship is more than surprising. In the handful of studies that tackle the problem of academic migration the gender differences in the experiences of return academics are left unaddressed (Gorshkov & Sherega, 2011; Laudel, 2005; Yelenevskaya & Fialkova, 2009; Zayonchkovskaya, 2011, Siegert 2008, 2011).

This is at the time when research - demonstrating the ways academic mobility transforms academic cultures and contributes to national developments in China (e.g. Jonkers, 2010; Wang, 2011), Asian countries (e.g. Iredale et al., 2003), Africa (e.g. Thomas, 2008) and Latin-American countries (e.g. Pellegrino, 2001) - is on its rise. Overlooked in the European scholarship is also the link between the gendered experiences of migration and return, on the one hand, and the attractiveness of the EU as a destination country, on the other. If Europe is to raise its scientific competitiveness, policies promoting participation of women in academic exchange need to be implemented more widely at the institutional, national and international levels.

As a theoretical point of departure this paper takes Cassarino (2004) and Levitt and Jaworsky (2007) conceptualisations of return migration. In advancing our argument we will be also drawing on the studies on student mobility and highly skilled migration (Arowolo, 2000; Brettell, 2003; De Bree et al., 2010; Iredale et al., 2003; Jonkers, 2010; Laudel, 2005; Popov et al., 2011; Smith & Favell, 2006; Sussman, 2011; Thomas, 2008; Tsuda, 2009). The applications of the emergent strand of literature on transnational habitus and identities of new global elites to the analysis of return migration will be examined as well (Kim, 2010; Morano-Foadi, 2005; Nowicka, 2006; Sussman, 2011).

Method

The paper is a mixed method study which draws on the surveys of 485 (309 female/ 176 male) Russian academics migrating to Germany (University of Hannover study) and interviews with 15 (8 female/7 male) academic returnees in Russia and Ukraine (Free University Berlin study). In the University of Hannover study, the participants were contacted via the alumni networks of student and academic exchange programmes such as DAAD and Alexander von Humboldt Foundations in Russia. In the Free University study, face-to-face interviews with academic returnees were conducted during a two-week research visit to European University and Smolny College, St Petersburg, Russia and Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine. The surveys on the migration pattern of Russian academics to Germany (University of Hannover study) were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS. Based on the outcomes of expert interviews and empirical data, the typology of academic returnees was formed. This included categories of academic returnees such as ‘patriots’, ‘germanophiles’, ‘global scientists’, ‘individualists’ (Siegert 2008). In the analysis of interview data, both studies adopted the ‘possible selves theory’ (e.g. Lee & Fiske, 2006; Oyserman et al., 2006) as a useful tool for re-tracing the decisions and aspirations of return.

Expected Outcomes

The paper is an important and timely contribution to research on migration and academic mobility. By re-tracing the returnees’ decisions, from the point of making decision to return, to re-integration in the home cultures and institutions, the paper uncovers how gender differences affects the returnees’ aspirations and experiences of return. This critical information will allow national governments and various funding bodies (the EU, Soros Foundation, US Department of State) and alumni networks (American Council, Fulbright Foundation, British Council, DAAD) to consolidate the efforts on building human capital in post-communist Europe and advance gender attentive policies fostering circular rather than one-way migration in Europe. The paper concludes that in order for the EU to achieve the goal of building the ‘knowledge society’ (European Commission 2011: 2), an intensive international exchange of knowledge will need to be facilitated and sustained. For those processes to take hold, political, media and academic discourses will need to move beyond the “brain drain”/“brain gain” debate towards a discussion of gender attentive policies and conditions fostering migration, integration, and re-integration of mobile academics.

References

Selected references A-E: Ackers, L., & Gill, B. (2008). Moving People and Knowledge: Scientific Mobility in an Enlarging European Union. London: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. Arowolo, O. O. (2000). Return Migration and the Problem of Reintegration. International Migration, 38(5), 59-82. doi:10.1111/1468-2435.00128 Batista, C., & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit. (2007). Brain Drain or Brain Gain? Micro Evidence from an African Success Story. Bonn, Germany: IZA. Bell, D. N. F., & Kirwan, F. X. (1981). Further thoughts on return migration: A rejoinder to Gordon (1981). Regional Studies: The Journal of the Regional Studies Association, 15(1), 63-66. doi:10.1080/09595238100185071 Brettell, C. (2003). Anthropology and Migration: Essays on Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and Identity. Walnut Creek, Calif: Altamira Press. Byron M., & Condon S. (1996). A comparative study of Caribbean return migration from Britain and France: towards a context-dependent explanation. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 21(1), 91-104. Campbell, E. K. (2007). Brain Drain Potential in Botswana. International Migration, 45(5), 115-145. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2435.2007.00429.x Cassarino, J.-P. (2004). Theorising Return Migration: A Revisited Conceptual Approach to Return Migrants. EUI working papers. Florence: European University Institute. Constant, A., & Massey, D. S. (2002). Return Migration by German Guestworkers: Neoclassical versus New Economic Theories. International Migration, 40(4), 5-38. doi:10.1111/1468-2435.00204 De Bree, J., Davids, T., & De Haas, H. (2010). Post-return experiences and transnational belonging of return migrants: a DutchMoroccan case study. Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs, 10(4), 489-509. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0374.2010.00299.x European Commission (2011) Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions; Horizon 2020 – The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Brussels; accessed on January 10, 2013. from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0808:FIN:en:PDF

Author Information

Andreas Siegert (submitting)

Potsdam University

Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences

Farnstädt, OT Alberstedt

Olena Fimyar (presenting)

Faculty of Economy and Social Sciences, Potsdam University, Germany

Olga Gnydiuk (presenting)

Institute New Europe

Kyiv

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