Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how migration imaginaries are shaped at different points across a young person’s mobile life trajectory, with a particular emphasis on the influence of education.

Paper long abstract:

Linear narratives about migration journeys assume destination imaginaries are formed prior to the migration journey. In this paper, I take a more "step-wise" approach to migration and explore how migration imaginaries are shaped at different points across a young person's mobile life trajectory. Based on qualitative research in rural Ethiopia, I show how internal migration is not initially driven by the bright lights of a destination imaginary, but rather the promise of education. It is generally once young people live in urban centers that social imaginaries crystallize around the benefits of rural versus urban life, or national versus international lifestyles. Thus, I argue education influences migration imaginaries and trajectories in two important ways: 1) structurally, because secondary and higher education is often only found in urban centers, leading to what Crivello (2010) calls 'migration-for-education'; and 2) aspirationally, because modern education and the promises it offers shape young people's notions of the 'good life,' and expectations about where it might be achieved, leading to a phenomena we may call 'migration-because-of-education.' To illustrate my claims, I narrate the stories of four young adults who all grew up in the same rural village in the Ethiopian Rift Valley, and elucidate how education shaped their varied migration imaginations and trajectories over time. In each story, the pursuit of education was the first reason to leave home, and the expectations it created had far reaching consequences on young people's social imaginations, life choices, and migration trajectories thereafter.