David Cairns

• PhD Sociology
• Principal Investigator at Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon

This book explores various forms of highly skilled mobility in the European Union, assessing the potential for this movement to contribute to individual and societal development. In doing so, the authors illustrate some of the issues arising from the opening up of Europe’s borders, and exposing its education systems and labour markets to internatio...

Erasmus is regarded as a European success story: an example of crossborder cooperation and an opportunity for students to improve their inter-cultural skills and work capacities. This article takes an in-depth look at this success, examining recent trends in Erasmus mobility. Analysis shows that while certain countries have greater numbers of stude...

This book takes an in-depth look at the European Commission’s Erasmus programme. In its current Erasmus+ format, the programme supports international exchange visits among students, trainees, volunteers and academic members of staff with a view to enhancing employability and encouraging intercultural understanding. Against the backdrop of the 30th...

Corporeal travel has been highly problematized during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to the curtailment of many previously taken-for-granted mobilities. This includes the circulation of international students; individuals undertaking short duration credit mobility exchanges alongside those who have migrated for an entire degree course. The objectiv...

This book looks at the changes that have taken place in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, following the lockdown of societies and imposition of border controls in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus. Using empirical evidence from Portugal, a geopolitically important point of intersection within Europe and between Global South and Global No...

This article explores the role played by migration and mobilities practiced while young in subsequent professional development, focusing on the example of research careers in Portugal. The first half of the discussion introduces theoretical issues, including the proposition that time spent abroad provides a means of generating distinction. This bel...

Digital citizenship’ can be seen both as an aspect of and precursor to participation in society. Potentially, this might create new opportunities and encourage participation among different groups, including new migrants. The political participation of exchange students, in many cases living in another country temporarily, has not been extensively...

This article explores an important aspect of academic precarity: the use of fixed-term contract researchers as factotums within universities. The practice can be defined as the taking-on of tasks that are outside of core research activities, including substantial amounts of time spent teaching , supervising students and preparing research proposals...

This article explores various aspects of the migration of science, including the circulation of scientific knowledge and the productivity of individual scientists. The first part of the article examines concepts that have helped define scientific employment, emphasizing the idea that a scientist's work should align with an episteme. The second part...

This discussion explores the significance of youth migration and mobility to career development, drawing on relevant theoretical precedents and empirical evidence. The first part of the talk focuses on conceptual issues, including the idea that spatial and social mobility are linked, with time spent abroad providing a means of generating distinctio...

Chapter 3 looks at tourism before the COVID-19 pandemic and during its first two years, using evidence from stakeholders in the Portuguese tourism industry that focuses on recent issues alongside more long-standing challenges relating to sustainability. To contextualize these developments, the authors adapt two pre-existing theoretical ideas. The f...

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the main theoretical terms of reference used in the book, including discussion of the ‘mobility turn’ and the accompanying ‘new mobilities paradigm’, developed to help explain multiplication in the forms and popularity of various forms of mobility, or mobilities, during the years prior to the pandem...

Chapter 5 looks at international labour migration during the pandemic, focusing on the case study of seasonal agribusiness workers in Portugal. Labour migration is a topic that has considerable social, political and economic gravitas in many countries, including Portugal. As an important form of mobility, some forms of labour migration, including i...

The final chapter of this book returns to debates about the meaning of mobility and the ramifications of temporary suspensions of the freedom to move during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. This disruption created imaginative challenges, making people think more critically about non-essential mobility, as well as practical problems, pa...

In Chapter 2 the authors elaborate at a theoretical level on the immobility turn that has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. Significantly, they note that the immobility turn is not just a product of the pandemic, but also a reflection of the limitations of the preceding period of expansion and multiplication of mobilities, not least of which is th...

The international circulation of higher education students expanded in the years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant that during the pandemic universities faced challenges in maintaining the integrity of international study programmes and supporting large numbers of fee-paying student migrants. In this chapter, focusing on the Portuguese con...

This article looks at the migration of qualified Brazilians to Portugal, with reference to the impact of political developments in Brazil on migration decision-making processes and their lifestyle aspirations in the host society. Original fieldwork consists of twenty in-depth interviews conducted with qualified Brazilians in the Lisbon area during...

The aim of this chapter is to introduce some of the conceptual tools researchers have developed to help explain young people’s spatial movement, especially in education, work and training contexts. This includes a reappraisal of the relationship between mobility and migration, seeing them as nested practices rather than distinct. The chapters also...

Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 focus on examples of migration taking place within formal education, with emphasis on student mobility at tertiary level. In keeping with some of the ideas already introduced in this book, there is recognition that young people, including students, tend to make their own mobility, using their agency to help them co...

This article looked at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management of internationalized learning, and the disruption to the transitions to adulthood among students reliant upon the freedom to move within and between countries. We started by outlining the place of mobility in transitions, connected to debates about the ‘Mobility Turn,’ wit...

This article looks at the mis-match between official discursive representations aimed at promoting Lisbon, the Portuguese capital city, as an international student hub and international students’ experiences. At a theoretical level, our work builds on the idea that re-branding a city’s image in terms of creativity, innovation and new technologies w...

This article looks at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic among international students in Portugal, focusing on their experiences during the Spring 2020 lockdown. The discussion begins with an outline of the research context, and recognition of the inherent precarity of much international student life. Our research questions hence look not only at...

This article looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international students, focusing on Portuguese-speaking African and Brazilian students during the lockdown of spring 2020. Using evidence from interviews conducted with 27 students domiciled in Portugal, we illustrate some of the challenges faced by students when coping with the pandemic,...

This book presents a range of different perspectives on youth migration, focusing upon research from a wide range of geographical contexts. While diverse, what theoretically unites the assembled chapters is the idea that migration as practised by young people has fragmented into disparate episodes. Rather than becoming migrants in the classical sen...

This section of our book focuses on the theoretical issues of relevance to the study of youth mobility. The aim is to introduce some of the conceptual tools researchers have developed to help explain young people's spatial movement, especially in education, work and training contexts. We also reappraise the relationship between mobility and migrati...

Having looked at various aspects of free movement in tertiary education in the previous section of this book, we now direct our attention towards young people's participation in student mobility programmes, the most prominent example being the European Commission-supported Erasmus programme. The popularity of Erasmus as a research topic is equally...

Mobility in training and employment contexts is of high importance for many young people who may wish to use spatial movement as a means of facilitating transitions not only from education to work but also from education to training and training to work, taking advantage of opportunities that may not be available close to home, potentially strength...

In the previous chapter, the idea was introduced that migration can be constructed out of an accumulation of miscellaneous mobility experiences. Through this means, young people can become migrants in a relatively tacit and unconscious manner, encapsulating a sense of flux and inherent precarity. In this chapter, we continue exploration of this the...

This chapter discusses the issue of youth digital participation. Social media in particular is thought to be able to open up new means of being political, albeit with strong criticism of participation via this means also noted. The chapter focuses on this theme of digital participation in Estonia, a country labelled as the ‘first digital nation’ th...

This chapter discusses the issue of youth digital participation. Social media in particular is thought to be able to open up new means of being political, albeit with strong criticism of participation via this means also noted. The chapter focuses on this theme of digital participation in Estonia, a country labelled as the ‘first digital nation’, t...

This handbook provides an overview of developments in the youth mobility and migration research field, with specific emphasis on movement for education, work and training purposes, encompassing exchanges sponsored by institutions, governments and international agencies, and free movement. The collection features over 30 theoretically and empiricall...

The Brazilian University for International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB) was created to host students from Portuguese-speaking Africa and Brazil. In this article, we look at the aims and objectives of UNILAB, which include the social integration of these students at the university. We present results from interviews conducted...

This article explores a significant yet curiously understudied form of transnational mobility as practiced by the highly qualified in Europe, namely the international internship. We argue that an international internship can be an ambivalent stage within youth transitions. While possibly providing a potential point of entry into a ‘dream’ career pa...

This chapter looks at different methodological approaches to researching the Erasmus programme, specifically a macro-level analysis of trends in participation, micro-level studies of small groups of students and a meso-level exploration of the programme's institutional level. Taking each of these approaches in turn, we highlight the relative streng...

In this article, we take a look at transitions to employment in Armenia for the highly qualified, focusing on students and graduates. Theoretically, we acknowledge the importance of insights from prior research, including the idea of the transition-to-work as a journey, with our research questions aimed at highlighting specific challenges facing Ar...

This chapter acknowledges the potential significance of recent political change in Armenia, specifically the impact of the Velvet Revolution of Spring 2018 on the lives of students and graduates. Considering the timeframe in which our fieldwork was conducted, July–September 2018, we were able to obtain some insight into the near immediate reactions...

Continuing the discussion of the interviewees’ accounts, this chapter looks at issues relating to the workplace in Armenia and abroad, including the challenge of finding work that is commensurate to education and skill level. This can be a difficult transition, different and arguably more arduous compared to moving from education-to-work in other c...

In this chapter, we explore spatial pathways open to students and graduates in Armenia, with particular emphasis upon Russia, the United States and the European Union. Using material from 51 qualitative interviews, we are able to illustrate some of the attractions and the challenges relating to these respective destinations. Among the issues discus...

While only a few months may have passed between finishing our fieldwork and the writing of this book, the Velvet Revolution continues to resonate throughout Armenian society. It would be fair to say that at the start of 2019, much of the excitement and enthusiasm has dissipated and a degree of scepticism has emerged, particularly in regard to the n...

Despite its popularity as a research topic, student and graduate mobility remains relatively undertheorized, especially in regard to explaining how and why certain individuals move abroad for work and study. Acknowledging this deficit, in this chapter we continue development of a line of inquiry introduced in our prior work: the idea that mobility...

This chapter consists of an outline of our research context: student and graduate mobility in Armenia. This includes a brief elaboration of social, economic and political background, and recent historical factors that may have a bearing upon mobility choices. We also locate our research within the mobility research field, arguing that in engaging w...

Call for Chapters - Palgrave Handbook of Youth Mobility

Based on exploratory research with students and graduates conducted in Armenia and its diaspora during summer 2018, Cairns and Sargsyan provide insight into some of the challenges involved in moving abroad, focusing on three different destinations: Russia, the United States and the European Union. Additionally, Student and Graduate Mobility in Arme...

This chapter explores youth mobility in a European context. Discussion begins with an outline of different mobility modalities and national diversity in institutionally-mediated and free movement. This leads towards an explanation of differentials in the practice of student mobility using the concepts of ‘mobility capacity’ and ‘mobility imperative...

In this section of our discussion, we look at some of the different ways in which Erasmus is experienced by participants, with emphasis on evidence from studies conducted in Poland. While an exchange visit is predominantly an academic experience, also present is a strong informal learning dimension. This is an aspect of the programme underlined by...

This book takes a look at the recent history of the European Commission’s Erasmus programme, charting its development in terms of participation, geographical scope and levels of financial investment. In the opening chapter, we look at different theoretical perspectives relating to this form of intra-European circulation, including the role of Erasm...

In the closing chapter of the book, we bring together insights from the preceding discussion and consider the present state of Erasmus and its future prospects. In doing so, we reiterate the idea that Erasmus is, fundamentally, a pedagogical tool for the learning of mobility and building mobility capacity among European youth. While there is potent...

Discussion of the Erasmus experience for students continues with exploration of encounters within the host country. While this can be viewed from the perspective of culture shock, we also acknowledge that homogenisation of the student experience in Europe helps to create a ‘bubble’ atmosphere, surrounding the student visitor when he or she moves to...

Since 2014, a range of actions associated with the preceding Youth in Action initiative have been interpolated into the Erasmus programme, including voluntary placements and other forms of short duration exchange. In this chapter, we elaborate upon the shift away from academic mobility and towards establishing a clearer personal-political agenda in...

In this chapter we take an in-depth look at one of the main theoretical constructs underpinning the Erasmus programme: the idea of ‘employability’. Taking a sociologically informed view, we define ‘employability’ as a form of reflexivity to be practiced during the transition from tertiary education to the labour market. Understanding employability...

In this chapter, we acknowledge international conviviality as an important driver of Erasmus participation for students, with the communal nature of exchanges being one of the main reasons for the programme’s longevity and success. Using evidence gathered from Erasmus candidates in Italy and interviewees in Germany, we are able to illustrate what a...

In an effort to understand how the Erasmus programme is made accountable to policymakers and European taxpayers, and managed as a ‘product’ by civil society organisations, we look at the regulation of quality within non-formal education mobility projects. Discussion in this chapter includes looking at work undertaken by the European Platform for Le...

In this chapter, we explore the management of Erasmus mobility among undergraduates, focusing on the example of Portuguese universities. Through the use of interview material gathered at eight different institutions, we are able to explain the process through which exchange visits are organized from an organisation’s perspective. This includes mana...

This article explores different methodological approaches to the study of social inclusion in the European Commission’s Erasmus undergraduate exchange programme, elaborating upon the approach taken in a study of Erasmus conducted in Portugal. The opening section of the discussion acknowledges the prior tradition of quantitative research on student...