Looking beyond the obvious: Power, epistemic culture and student migration in the knowledge-based economy

• Main Author: ORTIGA, Yasmin Y.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Sociology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2746; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4003/viewcontent/power201133263.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The emergence of the knowledge-based economy revived the brain drain debate of the1970s, calling for the recruitment of scientists and researchers in the interest of national development.International students find themselves in the middle of this debate, as developing countries struggle toaddress the growing number of those choosing not to return home after graduation. While mostresearchers explain student migration in terms of economic opportunity and incentives, this articleargues that this approach ignores the epistemic culture of graduate training and the differential powerof academic institutions in developed and developing nations. Based on a sample of Filipino PhDstudents in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields, this article shows howinternational students internalize research practices and values that encourage them to remain in theUSA. I also discuss how these values contradict the research culture within developing countries,making it difficult for students to imagine continuing their work if they returned home. Consequently,this article challenges how the brain drain narrative describes knowledge as an intellectual product,easily transferred across national borders. Rather, the article emphasizes the need to recognizeknowledge as a process of production, where shared norms define how new scholars are expected tocontribute to their fields.