Convenors
Eugenia Blasetti, University of Parma
eugenia.blasetti@unipr.it (corresponding scholar)
Cristina Mazzero, University of Trento
cristina.mazzero@unitn.it
In the last decade, the nexus between displacement, migration and International Student Mobility (ISM) within Higher Education (HE) has gained increased importance. Research shows how ISM is part of a more complex migratory and life trajectory, shaped by legal and regulatory frameworks and growing geopolitical instability (Cerna and Chou, 2023; Robertson and Runganaikaloo, 2014). ISM is thus highly stratified, unequal, and affected by broader processes of securitisation, migration control, and skilled worker recruitment (Walsh, 2019). These dynamics have also prompted the development of programs specifically targeting displaced students to increase their participation in HE. Among others, complementary education pathways have been developed under the Global Compact on Refugees to supplement traditional resettlement pathways and expand the range of durable solutions available to displaced populations (Kraler and Vankova, 2025). Along these two axes, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have become increasingly central to broader frameworks of migration governance, raising questions about the intersections between education and migration and the need to rethink academic mobility beyond the traditional paradigm of voluntary and temporary mobility (Brunner et al., 2025).
This panel aims to open a critical discussion to unpack these intersections and contextualise them within broader structural frameworks of migration governance, inviting ethnographic contributions on: (1) the role of HEIs as migration governance actors; (2) the political implications of this role; (3) how and to what extent the displacement-HE nexus contributes to reproducing or challenging contemporary regimes of mobility and migration governance; and (4) how this nexus intersects with broader transformations in the societal and political role of HEIs.
Ethnographic and qualitative approaches are particularly suitable to examine how the displacement-HE nexus is produced, not only through formal policies and institutional arrangements, but also through everyday practices and encounters. Shedding light on how categories of migration governance and institutional rules are interpreted and negotiated by academics, HEIs administrative staff, civil society organisations, international organizations and students themselves, ethnographic perspectives unveil how migration governance is enacted throughout different stages of the academic trajectory (from selection and support during studies to the post-HE transition), revealing its institutional, political and temporal dimension.
We welcome interdisciplinary contributions from different geopolitical areas bringing forward critical accounts of the displacement-HE nexus, with a specific focus on refugee and displaced students. We welcome contributions that privilege qualitative and ethnographic methods including (but not limited to) institutional and critical policy ethnographies, autoethnography, participatory action research (Ellis et al. 2011; Pabian, 2014; Trowler, 2014). Decolonial, reflexive and ethically-informed approaches are also encouraged as well as contributions from displaced scholars and students.
Open questions
- How do HEIs position themselves within broader processes of migration governance?
- What are the political implications of linking displacement and education?
- What specific contributions can ethnographic and qualitative research bring in investigating the displacement-HE nexus?
- How do ethnographic and qualitative methods illuminate the tensions between HE policies and national/international migration governance regimes?
- To what extent and how does migration through education intersect with the broader migratory trajectories and aspirations of displaced students? How do national migration policies shape these trajectories?
- Considering the selective nature of academic mobility, to what extent migration through HE contributes to tackle or, rather reproduces, inequalities of international mobility within broader regimes of migration governance?
- How do migration policies intersect with neoliberal transformations of HEIs and what are the consequences of this intersection?
Keywords
Migration governance, displacement, Higher Education, academic mobility, Higher Education Institutions, Education Pathways, displaced students
Sub-disciplines / cross-disciplinary areas
Sociology, anthropology, political science, geography, critical education studies, border studies, migration studies
References
Brunner, L. R., Trilokekar, R. D., Morris-Lange, S., Liu, H., Laufer, M., El Masri, A., & Joshi, A. (2025). Magnets, gatekeepers, surveillants, and refiners: The emergence of higher education institutions as migration governance actors in Australia, Canada, and Germany, 1990 to 2019.
International Journal of Educational Research, 129, 102490.
Cerna, L., & Chou, M.-H. (2023). Politics of internationalisation and the migration-higher education nexus. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 21(2), 222–235.
Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., Bochner, A.P. Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum:Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), Art. 10.
Kraler, A., & Vankova, Z. (2025). Active Refugee Admission Policies: Towards Conceptual Clarity?
Pabian, P. (2014). Ethnographies of higher education: Introduction to the special issue. European Journal of Higher Education, 4(1), 6–17.
Refugee Survey Quarterly, 44(4), 573–594.
Robertson, S., & Runganaikaloo, A. (2014). Lives in limbo: Migration experiences in Australia’s education–migration nexus. Ethnicities, 14(2), 208–226.
Trowler, V. (2014). May the subaltern speak? Researching the invisible ‘other’ in higher education. European Journal of Higher Education, 4(1), 42–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2013.851614
Walsh, J. P. (2019). Education or enforcement? Enrolling universities in the surveillance and policing of migration. Crime, Law and Social Change, 71(4), 325–344. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-018-9792-9.
Convenors’ bio
Eugenia Blasetti holds a PhD in Sociology (Sapienza University of Rome) and has recently completed a Postdoc in Sociology at the Department of Law, Politics and International Studies at the University of Parma where she worked on different forms of volunteering in the field of migration. Her main research interests concern migration governance, solidarity and social inclusion across different institutional and civic contexts. In the past year she has been working on displacement and Higher Education with particular reference to Education Pathways and displaced students’ post-graduation trajectories.
Cristina Mazzero is a PhD Candidate in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento. Currently, her PhD research investigates how Italian universities respond to the participation of students with forced migration backgrounds, focusing on how institutional policies and practices shape and negotiate forms of in-exclusion. Her main research interests concern, more broadly, forced migration, migration governance, international student mobility(ies), inequalities in higher education, and academic freedom. Cristina is also PhD Representative within the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Education and Social Inequality.