Short Abstract

This panel explores changing African student mobilities within Africa and towards Europe, Asia and the Americas, examining new destinations, university strategies and soft power, migration regimes, student agency, and the growing intersections between study, work and migration.

Long Abstract

African student mobility is being reshaped by the diversification of destinations, changing migration regimes and growing international competition for students. While established routes to Europe and North America remain important, students participate in growing intra-African and South–South mobility and pursue education in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. At the same time, long-standing mobility towards Islamic universities in Africa and the Middle East continues to connect African societies to transnational religious and intellectual networks. This panel examines these diverse geographies of African student mobility comparatively. It considers how universities, religious institutions and states use scholarships, recruitment, partnerships and internationalisation policies to attract African students, and how higher education intersects with diplomacy, soft power, religious and intellectual networks, skilled migration and local interests. The panel also places students’ agency and trajectories at the centre. Choices of institution and destination may reflect academic and religious aspirations, language, affordability, scholarships, employment opportunities, family strategies, migration policies and transnational networks. Working while studying and transitions between student, migrant and worker statuses further challenge conventional distinctions between educational mobility and migration. By connecting often separately studied educational circuits, the panel asks how diverse forms of African student mobility are transforming global and regional landscapes of higher education, knowledge circulation and migration.

We invite contributions on intra-African and intercontinental mobility; Islamic and secular universities; African–Middle Eastern educational networks; Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone and Arabophone mobility; established and emerging destinations, focusing on university and state policies, and students’ educational and employment trajectories.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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