Paper short abstract:

This paper explores anthropology of prosumed experience in contemporary scientific tourism. The research focuses on the new forms of social mobility of international students from three prestigious universities of England.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores anthropology of prosumed experience in contemporary scientific tourism. A concept of scientific tourism could be defined as 'a niche within alternative forms of tourism that shares specificities of learning, adventure, cultural, and experiential tourism' (Bourlon & Torres, 2016). The traveler/international student becomes an actor of this tourism experience and not just a consumer. The future student uses social media to imagine place of higher education and to produce texts which he or she narrativises their travels abroad. They consume an experience (Holbrook, Hirschman, 1982) with a personal or collective appropriation of visited places or universities and request thus specific services to meet their expectations.

The main source of this work derives from ethnographic fieldwork in the UK and Lithuania in 2017. The paper examines certain issues: how the new forms of social media create the consumption of mobile experience through studies abroad, and how the prosumed experience of international students create the new subjectivities and identities. The research focuses on the prosumed experience of international students from three prestigious universities of England, also, it explores the new forms of social mobility of academic youth.

In summary, the scientific tourism, as a prosumed experience, is a way forward in appropriate development strategies because it builds new productive systems based on the value of local cultures and identities, ecological assets and an effective appropriation of science and technology (Leff & al, 2002) by local actors.