Making ways for 'better education': Placing the Shenzhen-Hong Kong mobility industry

Tens of thousands of children living on Mainland China cross the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for a ‘better education’ every day. A well-oiled industry is in place to manage, facilitate and control this education mobility field. It involves schools, diverse businesses and non-governmental organisations that, in articulation with the Chinese and Hong Kong states, stimulate and regulate the movement of people, materialities, ideas and practices. Drawing on our fieldwork and media analysis, this paper unpacks the transurban mobility industry to illustrate the role of the various players and how they work in conjunction to facilitate cross-border schooling, especially among the very young children. We map out and visualise with photos the workings of the schools, buses, escorts, tutoring centres, day care and boarding houses. We show how the mobility industry, intersecting with other business networks and mobility systems, links Shenzhen and Hong Kong, taking and making places in these cities, especially in the border region. Our paper illustrates the role of this mobility industry in the making of the political-economy and socio-culture of the border area, which constantly connects, divides and redefines the two cities and regions it bridges. We end with some reflections on the implications of the recent political challenges and COVID-19 pandemic on this cross-border education mobility system

Mobilities of Knowledge: An Introduction

Mobilities of Knowledge examines how geographical mobility of people and (im)material things has impacted epistemic systems of knowledge in different historical and geographical contexts. In this chapter, the authors introduce concepts and debates in interdisciplinary research on spatial mobility and the production, dissemination, and transfer of knowledge. They suggest extending Urry’s (2007) typology of interdependent mobilities that constitute the space of flows and the space of places (Castells, 1996) from five to six dimensions through the consideration of mobile knowledges, concepts, and practices. Finally, they outline how the chapters of this volume help to identify generic as well as context-specific practices and processes of knowledge production, dissemination, and transfer and call for more empirical case studies to further the collective development of flexible conceptual understandings

Collecting intellectual mileage: a study of transnational academic mobility of Chinese scholars

Theme: Globalisation and the Changing Geographies of Production and Innovation: Implications for Workers, Firms, Regions and Countrie