Between logics of attractivity and migration management : Third-country national students’ application process to Sweden's Higher Education Institutions

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Linköping university - Department of Social and Welfare Studies (ISV) Master´s Thesis, 30 Credits – MA in Ethnic and Migration Studies (EMS) ISRN: LiU-ISV/EMS-A--19/17--SE

Between logics of attractivity

and migration management

– third-country national students’ application process to

Sweden's Higher Education Institutions

Joachim Biela

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Abstract:

In a context where Higher Education Institutions increasingly seek to attract students, this study follows the path of third country national students through their application process. Their particular status, situates them at the intersection between openness and closure. Between internationalization strategies that seek to attract them, and migration management policies that sometimes facilitate, sometimes restrain their movement. In a qualitative approach, it explores the application process’ different steps to Sweden's Higher Education Institutions. It uses Foucault’s governmentality, de Certeau’s strategies and tactics, along with Bourdieu’s understanding of capital, to analyze data issued from nine semi-structured

interviews with third country national students, studying or recently graduate from

Linköping’s University. Departing from students’ narratives on their application process to Sweden’s Higher Education Institutions, this study unravels the complex links between internationalization strategies and migration management, and how their disciplining effects appear throughout the application process.

Keywords:

Sweden, internationalization, higher education, international students, migration, governmentality.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Succinctly but sincerely, I wish to deeply thank all of those that have helped me in this project. First of all, I am very grateful to my informants, without whom I would not have completed this work. Thank you for your time and trust.

I would like to thank my supervisor, Per Anders Forstorp for his dedicated guidance throughout the thesis process. A great thank to the whole REMESO institute, professors, classmates and all those I encountered throughout these years.

I wish to give a special thank to Beatrice and Hammam, for their careful reading and advice. Thanks also to Esther, for her very valuable comments and support.

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Acronyms

EU The European Union

EEA The European Economic Area

HE Higher Education

HEI Higher Education Instiution

ISM International Student Mobility/Migration

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1. Introduction

Global higher education is increasingly evolving towards commodification logics. Degrees are sold to potential students on a globalized ‘knowledge’ market. In this dynamic,

international students are seen as rational consumers looking for the best product at the best price, but also as commodities, through the capitals they carry and the presumed

‘development’ perspective they represent (Sidhu, 2007). Despite its formulation in terms of supply/demand of a globalized market, internationalization of higher education is embedded in power relations and geo-political interests. Globalization, mobility and circulation are omnipresent in policy discourses and permit to avoid discussions over the power relations they presuppose (Sidhu, 2005, p. 306).

During the last decades, the progressive introduction of neoliberal agendas, with the New Public Management approach, have profoundly transformed public institutions’ functioning, and in particular those of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This is

happening around globalization discourses where a set of policies are developed through the idea of the “ knowledge economy”, as a way towards economic growth (Olssen and Peters, 2005). In these dynamics, HEIs occupy an important role in forwarding the ideal of flexibility the labor market requires from students (Ortiga, 2017). Parallel to this commodification logics, the so-called third country national students are set under scrutiny. Nation states follow logics of control and suspicion in order to avoid a potential “migratory risk” (Erlich, 2013). In 2011, Sweden introduced tuition fees for third-country national students seeking to study at a Swedish HEIs. Parallel to this reform, new requirements were set for this category of migrants to obtain a residence permit in Sweden. The main objective of the tuition fee reform was to gain shares on the globalized market for higher education. It sought to compete on this market with quality, while at the same time protecting the welfare state’s resources. The argument was: “that the cost of foreign students is equivalent to resources being taken away from Swedish students.”(Forstorp and Mellström, 2018, p. 221). Despite increased marketing efforts, the number of enrolled students dropped and is now slowly rising. A few years later, report from the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ), witnessed the financial cost of the reform (Universitetskanslersämbetet, 2017, p. 5). In this report, tuition fee financing is described as being more expensive than the state financed model, mostly because of the administrative and marketing costs the reform introduced. This paradoxical

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policy outcome in a nation-state such as Sweden, is part of a wider problematic of contemporary states that appear throughout their migration apparatus. The figure of the student/migrant concentrates nation state’s “liberal paradox” (Hollifield, 2004), where seemingly contradictory logics of openness and closure operate. Together, these logics form the education-migration nexus (Robertson, 2013), it is this nexus that I wish to unravel here.

1.1 Aim and Research Questions

Sweden's internationalization strategies seek to increase the number of incoming third country national students (Forstorp and Mellström, 2018, p. 233). These strategies are constructed within a neoliberal paradigm that sees the third country national student as a commodity, a consumer and an other (Fejes, 2008). It places student migrants at the crossroad of two contradictory injunctions. On the one hand their otherness presupposes undesirability, on the other hand students are seen as a potential highly qualified workforce which makes them desirable.

What I wish to do in this study, is to explore the ambiguity between openness and closure, or how border regimes are disciplining bodies and operate hand in hand with higher education’s commodification. In order to do it, I will look at the third country nationals’ application process to Sweden’s Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Through this perspective I wish to complete the research gap on this topic (King and Raghuram, 2013; Riaño et al., 2018, p. 291). Departing from the application process, I will develop this study under three main questions:

◦ How do internationalization strategies from Swedish HEIs appear in students’ application procedures?

◦ How are students navigating the application process? What resources are necessary? How are these resources mobilized by students?

◦ How are migration management and internationalization strategies materializing in the application process? How do they interact with one another? How are their respective logics adopted, negotiated and resisted by students?

I will look for answers to these questions by adopting a qualitative approach, based on semi-structured interviews. Through the perspective of student migrants I will investigate the steps that are structuring their application process. In order to analyze the material gathered I

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will make use of the following three main theorists. Michel Foucault with his

conceptualization of governmentality, Pierre Bourdieu’s economic, social and cultural forms of capital, along with Michel de Certeau’s reflection over everyday practices and his

distinction between strategies and tactics. The way I intend to use these theories will be detailed in my theoretical framework section.

1.2 Contextual Background

Having outlined my research aims and questions I will continue with a brief contextualization of Sweden’s migratory policies over third country national students within the larger frame of migration and higher education in the European Union.

1.2.1 EU Policies on Higher Education

Higher education in the European Union is subject to major transformation. Policies around knowledge and learning have increasingly been framed in a new narrative. Through a knowledge-based economy and society, the European Union will be able to meet the present and future challenges of globalization. A society based around knowledge will lead to

sustained economical growth and prosperity. The knowledge-economy and its goals have led to major policies such as the Lisbon treaty or the Bologna process. One of their goals is to foster intra-European mobility and increase European integration and cooperation. Moreover, these policies aim to develop cooperation and competition between European HEIs, in order to meet global challenges (Forstorp and Mellström, 2018, chap. 7).

1.2.2 EU Policies on Migration

Migration policies at the European Union level, are shaped and applied in a complex process. The Migration Apparatus (Feldman, 2012), formulates the management of the EU's external border in securitarian terms. Migration, in a biological metaphor, is seen as a fluid, with a high potential for security threats. These “risks” have to be anticipated and managed in order to control the milieu: “To plan for ‘good’ rather than ‘bad’ circulation” of the “fluid”(ibid, p. 86). This materializes in a systematical gathering of biometrical data. According to Feldman, the intrusive recording and accumulation of biological information is a way to organize transnational labor and maintain competition between workers. It constitutes the migration management apparatus. This way of managing migration is discursively presented in

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humanitarian terms, but it first and foremost permits a cheaper, “preventive”, way of keeping those that are not welcomed off the EU’s external borders while facilitating the travel of those needed by the economy as long as it needs them. In the language of policy officials the migrant is seen as a self entrepreneur individual willing to maximize his economical interest while supporting his country’s development by regularly returning to it. The circular

migration framework thus acts as a compromise between neoliberal and neo-nationalist claims.

1.2.3 The Case of Sweden

Migration of International Student is subject to multiple tensions. Policy making in this area is influenced by global goals and regulations, but nation-states remain determining forces that shape the international students migration experience. Despite a strong incentive from

supranational bodies such as EU’s directives, the national context, its debates and migratory history have a crucial role in shaping migratory policies for students (Levatino et al., 2018). Therefore, I will describe here with more details the positioning of Sweden and the shift that occurred in recent decades.

In their eight chapter : Becoming an Export of Higher Education : Positioning Sweden as a Knowledge Nation, the authors critically analyze the positioning of Sweden as « a self proclaimed ‘knowledge nation’ », that « highlights an eduscape developing from a paradigm of aid and development to the adoption of the ideologies of the market,

competitiveness, and the instrumentality of knowledge. » (Forstorp and Mellström, 2018, pp. 195–196). They provide an interesting insight on the policy shift that happened in recent decades. This shift is linked to European Union’s directives, the country’s aims and goals, but also to a larger trend where knowledge is seen as central to development in all its forms.

During these last decades, Sweden has embraced the ideal of the knowledge

society/economy and its imaginaries. In the set of policy documents discursively analyzed by the authors, knowledge is seen as a key driver for development that will be able to overcome globalization and its uncertainties. “Competition”, in hand with “cooperation” are key

elements of this scheme. In the internationalization discourses, attracting potential talents is a priority. This goal is fulfilled through active recruitment, promotion and marketing of the nation as a brand (ibid, 209).

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In the early 2000s, discourses around international students were part of the country’s paternalist aid and development approach. Students and researchers from abroad were seen as ways of enriching the cultural diversity and the quality of higher education. In the second half of the decade, the internationalization strategies took a new turn with the tuition fees reform. Adding to the “diversity” discourse, an emphasis on market rationality was introduced.

The decision to introduce fees for third country national students was subject to multiple discussions. Diverging interests from different institutions and parties formed a heated debate. Despite a majority of Swedish HEIs being seemingly favorable to the reform during consultation stage, few were ready to take the step of implementation (Tolofari, 2009). The objective was to attract as many third country national students as possible. The main argument pushed forward by the Social Democratic government was that Sweden should count on the quality of its education rather than on free admission to attract students. Free education would even be potentially harmful as it would be synonym of poor quality of education (Forstorp and Mellström, 2018, p. 214). These reforms are the result of the shift from a “diversity” and development oriented approach, to a market based rationality. Third country national students were now seen as a potential burden on higher education’s finances, that would lower the quality of education, hence an application fee had to be introduced. The argument being that in the long run, the introduction of tuition fee would financially support better quality education and would therefore increase long-term recruitment (ibid, p. 232).

I have here presented the background necessary to understand the study’s context. I will now continue this introductory chapter by looking at how previous research have studied the topic.

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1.3 Previous Research

In this section, I will detail how International Student Mobility/Migration (ISM) has been approached in recent literature. Academic interest over ISM have matched the expanding importance of this phenomena worldwide (King and Raghuram, 2013). In the recent decades, an increasing number of studies have focused on ISM. These studies are issued from a large variety of disciplines and contexts. As it is often the case within migration studies, an interdisciplinary approach is frequently adopted. Researchers presented here come from a large variety of background, mostly within the disciplines of sociology, geography and demography but also pedagogy. I will present only a selection of this growing field, retaining the most relevant literature for this study, without forgetting the most influential studies and researchers. I will introduce this review with studies adopting a pedagogical perspective, to further discuss the approach focusing on mobility/migration processes, from the perspective of students with approaches relying on Bourdieu’s capital. I will then move on to authors emphasizing the importance of policies and institutional bodies in framing ISM, to finally conclude on studies using governmentality as a frame. Throughout this review I will pay special attention to studies focusing on the ambiguity between openness and closure in the European context. I will end this short review assessing their relevance for this study.

1.3.1 International Student Mobility/Migration studies (ISM)

Research on international student movement across nation states is referred both as a mobility and migration depending on researchers’ stance and their object of study. A majority of researchers studying the European level adopt the mobility paradigm, as a way to emphasize the categorization as highly skilled form of migration and most importantly it implies a shorter time-frame. ‘Mobility’ is often used with studies on exchange programs where return to the origin country is assumed. ‘Mobility’ for a full degree program, “clearly fit the

conventional statistical definition of international migration (often predicated on a move lasting at least 1 year), with a more open-ended likelihood of return to country of origin.” (King and Raghuram, 2013, p. 129). As these authors propose and use in their article, I will here refer to ISM as a term that encompasses both researches framed under Mobility or Migration.

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1.3.2 Pedagogical Perspective

A number of studies focusing on international students are framed from a pedagogical perspective, often assessing international students ‘experience’ abroad. For example, Elspeth Jones (2017) criticizes the notion of ‘international student experience’, as it has been framed to address the particular need of this category of students. She speaks from the perspective of the receiving institution and argues that the improvement of services needs to be thought for all students, as they most probably all share the same needs. Her study shows the powerful impact policy discourses on international students have on HEIs. Unfortunately, her perspective doesn’t address the profound legal dichotomy created between domestic and international students, despite being critical to it.

In their article, Fabricius et al. (2017), the authors analyze the paradoxical stance in internationalization policy documents at the university’s level. It describes the omnipresent mismatch between what is expected from the internationalization and its real outcome in the Danish context. They are particularly interested in “diversity” and multilingualism in the policy discourse, as it often translates in day to day practice into a dominance of the English language, in spite of the multiplicity of languages present in the classroom. Through language and interculturality discourses, this work highlights contradictions in the development of internationalization.

In their recent work, Brooks and Waters, place education at the center of their book through the lens of materialities and mobilities (Brooks and Waters, 2017). Based on their extensive experience in the United Kingdom and wider European context, they develop their argument on education by drawing together perspective on mobilities and materialities, enabling them to highlight the structures forming the journey of individuals in education spaces. They moreover use thick qualitative narratives to give an absorbing insight on individual’s agency.

1.3.3 Capital Approach

A grounding ethnographic study in the field is the work of Murphy-Lejeune (2002). In her rich ethnographical study she explores the journey of Erasmus students. She uses Georg Simmel’s conceptualization of the “stranger” to describe the status of Erasmus exchange students. Their category intrinsically situates them as outsider: in the group but not of the

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group. At the moment when she writes the book, this recent category joins other migrant categories with all the consequences “otherness” implies.

Christof Van Mol also focuses on intra-European mobilities (Van Mol, 2014). His book gives a well-grounded sociological overview of the intra-European student migration. He describes processes of (im)mobility and the social factors framing them, such as the EU’s identity construction project, but also its market-oriented narratives.

Carlson draws from previous conceptualization of mobility capital (Brooks and Waters, 2011; Murphy-Lejeune, 2002). He explains how ISM studies tend to frame studying abroad as the result of a one-time choice made by rational seeking individuals.

Acknowledging Findlay’s criticism on students’ perspective-based approach (Findlay, 2011), he argues for the study of how international students become mobile instead of why (Carlson, 2013, p. 169). In this article, he seeks to look at how previous mobility experience, along with students’ social embeddedness plays a significant role in their mobilities. He uses the notion of habitus to understand how students enter abroad studies. He shows how their mobility capital permits a set of disposition towards further mobilities.

A study also departing from mobility capital is the one of Soloviova. She evaluates how Russian students experience mobility perspective in the Arctic region. Through a

quantitative, survey-based study, Soloviova looks at the way mobility capital is perceived and experienced by students. Establishing that participants’ “preferences for study-abroad

opportunities correlated with their perceptions of and attitudes toward mobility capital” (Soloviova, 2017, p. 259).

1.3.4 Perspectives from the ‘Supply-Side’

ISMigration/Mobility studies have often been framed within a push/pull model that situates international students and higher education institutions within a set of rationales, between supply and demand. Below are studies arguing for the importance to focus on policies and institutional actors in framing ISM.

Findlay emphasizes the importance of ‘supply side’ oriented studies. Supply side being understood as ISM organizing structures: nation-states, their policies and institutions, such as HEIs. He argues that too many ‘demand-side’ theorization are intrinsically simplistic in the way they focus on the student’s decision, without “recognizing the importance of the cultural, social and economic contexts within which ‘decisions’ are taken” (Findlay, 2011, p. 164). Thus, omitting the power of the supply side of international education and its interest to

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gain international students. In his work he quantitatively analyses large secondary data sets in order to measure the impact of internationalization and larger migration policies from HEIs in the UK context. He informs us on the outcome of UK policies that are increasingly oriented towards knowledge economy goals.

Suzanne E. Beech looks at how the end of the 2 years post-study work visa has affected the international student recruitment in United Kingdom. This policy change appeared in a growing anti-immigration sentiment. Through qualitative interviews with higher education recruitment officers, she analyses how policy development is impacting what she refers to as a migration industry. Her article is particularly interesting because of the link she makes between policies and the potential success of these industries. She concludes that a greater research attention should be put on those individuals hired by HEIs to

encourage mobilities and ease student recruitment. This in particular within the Chinese and Indian markets, where a transnational lens would enable a better understanding of Higher Education’s migration industry (Beech, 2018).

Receiving institution and national policies have a profound influence on student migrants. This influence rises from a variety of stakeholders and institutional bodies. Seeking to answer calls for a greater attention to the multiple actors invested in student migration (King and Raghuram, 2013), Basford and Riemsdijk look at the impact of a Norwegian scholarship program for international students. Framed as a development aid, the Quota Scheme involves multiple stakeholders that have a direct influence on students’ experiences. They both look at institutional actors’ perspective, and students’ perception, concluding that policies and the way they are implemented have significant, and sometime unforeseen, impact on students’ experience, motivation and migration patterns (Basford and Riemsdijk, 2017).

In the Danish context, Mosnega and Agergaard (2012), offer an interesting insight on the new role universities have to fulfill, as agents of internationalization within the

knowledge economy. They examine “how the universities’ agency is structured by the combination of their internal characteristics and external policy developments” (Mosneaga and Agergaard, 2012, p. 520). This qualitative study is based on interviews with key

stakeholders of the internationalization process in the Danish university. It describes what is implemented in order to attract international students and how the university navigates between different stakeholders and policy directives. They follow incentives and build

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initiatives to become “international”, but first and foremost, to become competitive. It is particularly relevant as Sweden’s policies have developed in a very similar way to Denmark’s policies. Especially in regards to non-EU/EEA nationals' policies, but also for the general incentive to participate to internationalization of higher education, while leaving much room for universities to develop within their own local scheme. The role played by universities and their representatives is central to understand student migration and the larger transformation of higher education. The authors moreover emphasize the need for research from the student migrant's experience which I will contribute to with this work.

1.3.5 ISM Studies from the Perspective of Migratory Policies

Despite a majority of these studies remaining highly critical to the role played by migration policies, and the way it shapes the status of students, there is a need to assess the migration aspect more deeply. Because international students are seen as a particular category among migrants, their status as first and foremost students is questioned. While being desirable in many ways, they remain suspicious. Below are some studies focusing further on the processes that set student migration under scrutiny.

Riaño together with Van Mol and Raghuram, offer a much-needed call for new directions in studying policies of International students mobility/migration (Riaño et al., 2018). They emphasize the need to critically approach policies around international students, within the larger migration policy scheme. This especially in the eventual conflictuality appearing in their enforcement. They argue that studying discourses would enable to highlight and understand the paradoxical trends towards restrictive migration management and increasingly liberalized student mobility/migration.

This approach is also taken by Antonina Levatino and colleagues (Levatino et al., 2018). They precisely try to measure this tension in policy development. They do this by comparing how student migration policies have evolved in UK, France and Spain since the late 1990’s, in order to grasp convergence and divergence in this evolution. They want to look at the larger forces that shape or not this evolution, to see if convergence emerges from policy making in this area. Their findings highlight that despite common evolution, country-specific trends and decisions remain central to policies’ evolvement.

In his study on the forms of transnationalism enabled by communication technologies such as internet, Collins explores how South Korean internationals in New Zealand connect

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with ‘home’ (Collins, 2009). He does it while looking at the spaces of inclusion and exclusion both online and offline. He offers a particularly interesting reflection on discipline and surveillance organized through online spaces, as they have a direct impact on the bodies and action of individuals, creating boundaries and reproducing borders.

Geddie offers a critical perspective on the growing literature on regulations

encouraging highly desirable (post)graduate such as engineers to stay after theirs studies, as these studies and policies often frame students as free and individual agents. Her article points out the degree to which “this perspective erroneously underestimates the degree to which students’ choices are constrained as they seek to balance diverse transnational

relationship concerns with their varying career and citizenship strategies.” (Geddie, 2013, p. 205). She critically analyzes this stance by showing how social ties and affects highly influence the decision of post-graduation mobility, this in a highly gendered way.

1.3.6 Governmentality Approach

A number of studies also see the development of higher education in the neoliberal context through Foucauldian perspective. They analyze its evolution using the concept of

governmentality.

Governmentality studies in higher education context enable to analyze how

marketization process of HEIs impacts students. Neoliberal governmentality “creates a close entanglement between rationalities of governance of individuals and governance of markets.” (Varman et al., 2011, p. 1180). In their study they sought to understand market subjectivity through the discursive practices of students. This in the context of an Indian business school where market subjectivity is nurtured. They uncover how disciplinary and pastoral power along with self-governance practices orientate towards market subjectivity and the

problematic results of this. While their focus is on individual subjectivities, they still relate it to the larger policy framework. They reflect on how elitist discourses and neoliberal fee reforms “create a situation of student borrowing which in turn contributes to a discourse of greater dependence on market forces for returns.”(Varman et al., 2011, p. 1181). They link it to postcolonial dynamics with the West, using the example of the omniprescence English in higher education, and students’ “preference for multinational recruiters who offer jobs in the West with high dollar denominated salaries.” (ibid).

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In the European context, Aline Courtois takes the governmentality perspective together with the idea of hypermobility, to analyze how study-abroad mobility is constructed (Courtois, 2018). She uses critical analysis of policy documents and qualitative interview methods with student undertaking an Erasmus exchange. Hypermobility is defined in the neoliberal context where increasing student mobility is a way to construct the ideal

employable subject: “by framing individuals as self-reliant, dis-embedded and ‘free’ (in fact, expected) to relocate as required or desired in the global labor market.”(Courtois, 2018, p. 4). Through the governmentality stance she shows how student mobility programs’ discourses aim to produce a mobile and flexible subject necessary to neoliberal capitalism. She does this without ignoring individuals’ agentivity and critical view towards these incentives.

Sidhu and her colleagues look at internationalization practices in the East Asian higher education context. They combine governmentality studies with Deleuzian social theory to critically analyze the governmental assemblage that translates “tensions between politico-institutional desires for circulation and practices of containment” (Sidhu et al., 2016, p. 1510). This, to distance themselves from more geographic approaches that see

globalization processes in international education as ineluctable (Brooks and Waters, 2011; Findlay et al., 2012).They take the perspective of students in international universities, to look at how this assemblage transmits in the local and global spaces of East Asian HEIs. Their findings highlight how aims for a ‘global’ university are rarely achieved but are rather subject to contestations in the form of ethno-essentialist encounters and containment logics, both on and off campus spaces.

I have presented here how ISM have been framed under different approaches. I started this section with the pedagogical perspective in terms of student experience. I have then presented studies using the mobility capital frame. Number of these studies focus on mobility exchanges occurring within the Schengen area, where migratory barriers are lowered, and a transnational frame of exchange is set up and encouraged. This in a much-facilitated

European student mobility, especially within the European Union and the framing of the Bologna process (Fejes, 2008). Nevertheless their approach is central to understand the way different forms of capital influence ISM. Further in this section, I presented studies

emphasizing the importance of policies and institutional actors, finally I described how the concept of governmentality have been used in ISM studies.

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I will now briefly summarize how I intend to develop this study in relation to previous research. I will draw from studies using a capital approach to understand how students are able to become mobile. I will also follow Findlay’s argument to address the gap between supply and demand sided studies (Findlay, 2011). I will aim at combining these approaches, by giving an overview of the supply side through the perspective of demand side. This means I will look at policies and institutional actors from the perspective of students. This

perspective will enable me to address the lack of empirically founded researches on this topic (King and Raghuram, 2013; Riaño et al., 2018). It will also permit to grasp the impact of migratory policies and their articulation with internationalization policies, in order to understand what they produce in terms of governmentality.

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1.4 Theoretical Framework

I will now describe my theoretical framework in more details. I will present this section under three main theories and concepts: Foucault’s governmentality, Certeau’s strategies and tactics, along with Bourdieu’s understanding of the different forms of capital, extending it with the conceptualization of mobility capital. I have first summarized these theories and concepts as they have been understood by their original author, to then expand on how contemporary authors have made use of these, to finally try to exemplify on how I intend to use them.

1.4.1 Governmentality

In his 1977 to 1978 lectures at the Collège de France, titled: Security, Territory, Population, Michel Foucault describes the historical emergence of the modern state’s art of governing. To undertake this historical investigation, he develops the concept of governmentality. He defines it in three dimensions. First as the way in which an “ensemble formed by institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, calculations, and tactics” exercises this form of power on a population. Secondly this power he names government, has developed a set of

apparatuses and knowledge in order to fulfill its raison d’État. Thirdly, it should be

understood as a process of evolution from the feudal structures and their respective form of power, to the state in its modern form (Foucault, 2009, pp. 108–109). As this new form of governmentality emerged, it relied on the nascent economy, as a way to rationalize the exercise of power, through the knowledge developed by statistics, along with: “a set of doctrinal principles concerning how to increase the power and wealth of the state.”(Foucault, 2009, p. 101). This rationality would orientate the governmental reason, parallel to it,

apparatus of security would increasingly rely on disciplinary mechanism. This disciplinary mechanism:

“… constantly codifies in terms of the permitted and forbidden, or rather the obligatory and the forbidden, which means that the point on which the

disciplinary mechanism focuses is not so much the things one must not do as the things that must be done.” (Foucault, 2009, p. 46)

Performed in discourses and its rationalities, it seeks to encourage individuals to adopt self-regulating practices. Governmentality, as a form of power aims to govern populations, it translates into individual’s micro practices in a subtle and diffuse way.

“In thinking of the mechanisms of power, I am thinking rather of its capillary form of existence, the point where power reaches into the very grain of

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individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives.”(Foucault, 1980, p. 39)

This theorization of governmentality is particularly relevant for this study, as its mechanisms are at the center of the modern state’s higher education and migration

management. I will exemplify this through studies using governmentality as a framework. Migration politics and its formulation by nation states have known profound transformation. Beyond repressive mechanisms of control to more subtle disciplining of mobility, the

migration management paradigm can be understood in the frame of governmentality as: “… a new ‘art’ of governing populations and flows of people ‘through’, ‘in the self-interest of’ and ‘with the help of’ the very individuals that (try to) cross national borders.” (Geiger and Pecoud, 2010, p. 32).

In research on higher education, governmentality have often been used to describe the way in which global higher education shapes the ideal neoliberal subject (Courtois, 2018; Fejes, 2008; Miller and Rose, 1990; Sidhu et al., 2016; Varman et al., 2011). The use and conceptualization of governmentality made by Ravinder Sidhu is particularly inspiring for this study. Through the Foucauldian stance, Sidhu’s work seeks to discuss:

“… an alternative approach to globalization—taking it as a governmentality and a way of knowing—to disrupt its naturalness, its inevitability, and unsettle

assumptions of its position as the next phase of human development.” (Sidhu, 2005, p. 305)

This in the context where HEIs worldwide are increasingly turning towards market logics. She argues that studying internationalization of higher education through the lens of “technologies of the self” formulated by Foucault, would enable to unravel disciplinary practices and thus permit to break free from them (Sidhu, 2005, p. 315). While her work in this book does not “convey in more detail the productive possibilities that surround the active transgressive subject.” (Sidhu, 2005, p. 301), this thesis will seek to fill this gap through the conceptual lens of Certeau’s tactic.

1.4.2 Strategies and Tactics

Michel de Certeau offers an inspirational way to analyze everyday practices in the context of global higher education marketization. Through his theorization of strategies and tactics, Certeau’s work permit to catch the ways in which this governmentality is performed by its

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agents, while at the same time unveil the silent but nonetheless omnipresent acts of resistance he names tactics.

He calls strategies the result of the calculus that a subject of will and power uses in order to produce a set of relation with the Other. This subject of will and power, is understood here as something that can be isolated from its environment:

“I call a strategy the calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships that becomes possible as soon as a subject with will and power (a business, an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated. It postulates a place that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations with an

exteriority composed of targets or threats (customers or competitors, enemies, the country surrounding the city, objectives and objects of research, etc.) can be managed. As in management, every ‘strategic’ rationalization seeks first of all to distinguish its ‘own’ place, that is, the place of its own power and will, from an ‘environment’.” (Certeau, 2002, p. 36, emphasis in original).

These strategies have their basis in economical, scientific and political rationalities created by institutions and structures. These rationalities create a knowledge that will orientate the exercise of power to best fulfill its goals. In opposition to this definition of strategies, tactics are calculated actions that aren’t autonomous, they do not have their own space. Tactics happen on an imposed space, where the other:

“... does not, therefore, have the options of planning general strategy and viewing the adversary as a whole within a district, visible, and objectifiable space. It operates in isolated actions, blow by blow. It takes advantage of ‘opportunities’ and depends on them, being without any base where it could stockpile its winnings, build up its own position, and plan raids. What it wins it cannot keep. This nowhere gives a tactic mobility, to be sure, but a mobility that must accept the chance offerings of the moment, and seize on the wing the possibilities that offer themselves at any given moment. It must vigilantly make use of the cracks that particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of the proprietary powers. It poaches in them. It creates surprises in them. It can be where it is least expected. It is a guileful ruse.” (Certeau, 2002, p. 37)

It operates blindly on an unknown space. It is the art of seizing the opportunity when it appears, while being uncertain of its outcome. It is an art of the weak that appear in multiple silent and invisible ruse.

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Certeau’s theorization, by the questions it poses is simultaneously “analogous and contrary” to the Foucauldian perspective. Contrary in the sense that it seeks to exhibit “the clandestine forms taken by the dispersed, tactical, and makeshift creativity of groups or individuals already caught in the nets of ‘discipline.’ Pushed to their ideal limits, these procedures and ruses of consumers compose the network of an antidiscipline which is the subject of this book.” (Certeau, 2002, p. xiv). He does not see individuals as passive and dispossessed, but rather as being able to deploy creativity. This creativity is hidden in a set of daily practices. Through this art of doing, individuals perform resistance. Certeau sets his analysis in the context of consumer society. Where consumers, despite some of the repressive aspect of modern states, can create, to produce their own way of consuming. His postulate originates in the idea that ordinary people aren’t a homogeneous block, and their everyday practices are observable. They are not passive in front of the commodities proposed. Through their real use of these commodities, they create and invent.

“In reality, a rationalized, expansionist, centralized, spectacular and clamorous production is confronted by an entirely different kind of production, called ‘consumption’ and characterized by its ruses, its fragmentation (the result of the circumstances), its poaching, its clandestine nature, its tireless but quiet activity, in short by its quasi-invisibility, since it shows itself not in its own products (where would it place them?) but in an art of using those imposed on it.” (Certeau, 2002, pp. 31–32)

He illustrates this through the example of how indigenous Indians subverted the laws, practices and representations imposed by the Spanish colonizers in their very usage.

Emphasizing tactics as a mean to resist oppression.

“Submissive, and even consenting to their subjection, the Indians nevertheless often made of the rituals, representations, and laws imposed on them something quite different from what their conquerors had in mind; they subverted them not by rejecting or altering them, but by using them with respect to ends and

references foreign to the system they had no choice but to accept.” (Certeau, 2002, p. xiii)

An important precision to mention here is that this tactical use from consumers, despite its re-appropriation and distancing from the prescribed usage, doesn’t necessarily enters in contradiction with the strategic goals. Analyzing global higher education within this scheme permits to critically analyze its commodification processes and disclose

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students/consumers’ subversion to it (Saltmarsh, 2004). Moreover, conceptualization of strategies and tactics are highly relevant to the migration control context (Gill et al., 2014).

1.4.3 Bourdieu’s Forms of Capital and Mobility Capital

In order to understand and analyze how these students can navigate through the application process I have been using Bourdieu’s capital theorization (Bourdieu, 2010, 2002). Through his work on the judgment of taste, Pierre Bourdieu looks at how the way individuals live their lives, situates them within the social space. His theorization permits to understand how social structures are embodied by individuals. I will use the conceptualization of capitals as a tool to explore who or what receives societal recognition in various social settings, here in the field of higher education. He defines the three fundamental forms of capital in the following way:

“… as economic capital, which is immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights; as cultural capital, which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the form of educational qualifications; and as social capital, made up of social obligations (‘connections’)”(Bourdieu, 2002, p. 16)

The different forms of capital he identifies: cultural, economic, social and symbolic capital offer here a way to describe the resources third country national students must mobilize in order to initiate and complete their study in Swedish HEIs. To give a practical example, cultural capital in its institutionalized, ‘objectified’, form is materialized in the form of academic degrees internationally recognized, necessary to apply for education in Sweden.

Social capital is understood as the social relations sustained by individuals, he describes it as a “durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (ibid, p.21) such as family, or an alumni network for example. Social capital does not only encompass one single agent’s social relation, it is highly

connected to the other forms of capital in the way it enables to mobilize other agents’ capitals:

“The volume of the social capital possessed by a given agent thus depends on the size of the network of connections he can effectively mobilize and on the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his own right by each of those to whom he is connected.” (Bourdieu, 2002, p. 21)

Particularly relevant for the aim of this study is convertibility of the different forms of capital between one another:

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“The different types of capital can be derived from economic capital, but only at the cost of a more or less great effort of transformation, which is needed to produce the type of power effective in the field in question.” (Bourdieu, 2002, p. 24)

I will add to this perspective, the conceptualization of mobility capital. In her ethnographic work on European mobile students Murphy Lejeune’s first proposed to conceptualize mobility capital as a form of human capital (Murphy-Lejeune, 2002). She develops it in order to comprehend the social factors enabling the creation of the new migratory elite undertaking educational mobility in Europe. Brooks and Waters develop Murphy-Lejeune’s understanding of mobility capital. They conceptualize it in relation to social reproduction and argue for its attachment to the other forms of capital outlined by Bourdieu (2010) (economic, social and cultural). Advancing the way in which mobility capital can be translated to and from other forms of capital. Through this approach they show how:

“decisions to move abroad for higher education are rarely taken by free-floating individuals but are usually firmly grounded within networks of family and friends.” (Brooks and Waters, 2010, p. 154)

This theoretical standpoint will enable me to firstly describe the way in which governmentality is exercised by a set of actors that structure internationalization of higher education in the world. Emphasizing the way in which Sweden’s institutional actors and policies shape the journey of student migrants. Bourdieu’s formulation of capital permits to comprehend how the application process is being navigated by students. It highlights the resourcefulness required to fulfill the requirements set by Sweden’s apparatuses. I will moreover describe how strategies, are developed by converging and conflicting interests from a variety of actors. How their competing rationalities are deployed and experienced by the migrating student subject. This theorization will enable to assess how some strategies are precisely aimed at attracting and facilitating students’ migration while other constitute a barrier to its realization. While third country national students, the other, make use of tactics, to maneuver the globalized market of higher education.

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1.5 Methodology and Material

1.5.1 Methodology

In order to capture the ambiguity between different policy aims and how they translate into the experiences of third country national students, I have been using two main methods: ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews. In this section I will detail and explain my methodological choices, present the material and how it was collected.

I have chosen qualitative interviews as the main method to gather data for the analysis. As qualitative interviews are “uniquely capable of capturing central aspects of human conversational processes, self-understandings, and ways of talking, reasoning, and describing past experiences.” (Brinkmann, 2013, p. 142). Throughout this study I mainly followed Brinkmann’s reflection on qualitative interview method, I also made a consequent use of the very practical but nonetheless precious methodological advice given by Beaud and Weber (2010).

Regarding the sampling ISM research presents a particular challenge, as the category of ‘international students’ is a very heterogeneous group. The recruitment process can have an unforeseen impact on study results (Kristensen and Ravn, 2015), being aware of this while at the same time being constrained by practical limitations, I have been paying attention to the way in which I selected informants. Following the two authors advice I will try to make my recruitment process as clear as possible. For example, one thing that I felt sometime was the willingness of some informants to participate in order to deliver a certain message,

experience, they had and felt would be important to share, this being highly linked to the way in which I presented my study. This position was critically assessed throughout the analytical process.

In the policy documents, discourses and even research literature, the category of ‘international students’ is often used without further detail. This category can cover very different realities. The international students I am interested in for this study are those that enter the EU’s categorization of third country nationals, namely non-EU/EEA citizens. Within this category I am looking at those that entered the European Union under the purpose of studying within a Swedish higher education institution, in this case Linköping University.

It is important to remain critical towards analysis that only see students in this type of migration. Without taking into accounts the many facets that this migration implies, for

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family, friends, work, affects etc., along with the high agentivity that migrants are often able to deploy. The category of third country national students includes a very heterogeneous set of persons and trajectories, which must be considered in the data collection and its analysis. This category of international student encompasses a multitude of identities: “They are simultaneously family members, citizens of a particular country, workers, and perhaps also refugees or asylum-seekers.” (King and Raghuram, 2013, p. 134).

Being an international student from France, I followed the application procedure that apply to European citizens, with all the ease this status permits. Moreover, I am a Swedish citizen from birth and know the Swedish language. This positionality has enabled me to access a set of situations and practices that have triggered my interest for the topic. My ambiguous positionality enabled me to access certain data that certainly would not have appeared in another situation. This especially when participants where expressing their views on the us/them dichotomies omnipresent in the university space. I was often considered as belonging to the wider international student category and being one of ‘them’. Moreover, my knowledge of the Swedish language enabled me to access certain policy documents and discourses that greatly enhanced my comprehension of the social situation.

Certain methodological challenges remain as emphasized by Aksakal et al. (2018), as they denounce the lack of methodological reflection and little attention drawn from the academic literature on the topic of ISM. They highlight how the temporality of the academic calendar has a great influence on the subjectivity and perception of students. Participants were at different stages of their studies, and in different programs with each their own study paste. This affected them in a variety of ways. The subjectivity they had on the process of application they had gone through was greatly influenced by their present situation. I

therefore tried to take this fact into account and reflect upon it in my analysis as well as with participants.

The time period I chose to focus on is in the interviewees’ past, they needed to rememorize the event and how they happened. Narratives developed under these interviews are constructed in the given present over events that occurred long ago. They are shaped by the present individuals situate themselves in. I therefore followed Brinkmann advice on the role of memory in interviewing (Brinkmann, 2013, p. 38). Interviewing is also a social practice; the conversation in itself is a social interaction where interviewer and interviewee perform. In that regard I want to emphasize the normality of some topics in the international

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student’s ‘experience’. Discussing one’s experiences, difficulties and success in application process for example, is a very common practice for most international students. As it will be described in the analysis, telling and hearing these stories are part of how the experience abroad is constructed, this even from the institutional perspective where multiple feedback on exchange experiences are often demanded. Therefore, interviewing processes were sometime felt as illusively natural. Some of the stories and experiences narrated to me had most

probably been told to others before in a very similar way, being part of the narrative construction of their experiences.

1.5.2 Material:

Having presented the main methodological challenges this study entails I will now describe my material and how it was collected.

I constructed my reflection through ethnographic observation in the university context. Within these two years of master’s program, I have encountered a set of events, remarks, situations, discussions etc. that have nurtured my reflection on the topic. I systematized my ethnographic data collection only from February 2019. Ethnographic

observation was used as a secondary tool, I chose to exclude data collected in this way and to focus on the interview’s data. The topic of this thesis being entangled with my everyday life and social relations I preferred to avoid difficulties linked to reflective distanciation and ethics (Beaud and Weber, 2010, pp. 39–42). Nevertheless, data collected in this way have greatly enhanced my understanding and reflection on the topic and are therefore indirectly part of this work.

My interviewees were recruited using different methods. Being faced with the challenge of avoiding my direct social circle, I tried different ways to avoid a too narrow point of view. I first had two exploratory interviews with students that I had met prior to this study. Others were reached using my social network and permitted to reach out to further networks. For me to better distance myself I looked to recruit participants outside my circle of acquaintances, mostly by looking within Linköping’s University main campus to which I am unfamiliar with. Two interviewees were met through an open event organized by the International Student Association of Linköping.

I conducted nine semi-structured interviews. As with any qualitative inquiry, this work does not look for an unreachable representativity or exhaustivity, but rather try to gather a set

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of diverse experiences that will inform us on complex social situations. Participants were recruited on the basis that they were third country nationals that entered Sweden for the purpose of study. From this recruitment process, I met and interviewed five women and four men. Regarding their geographical origins three were from Mediterranean countries, two from China, two from India, one from a West African country and one from the South American continent. All were required to pay tuition fees, but some had scholarships of different natures. They study (or have studied) at Linköping University, in one of its master’s program. I have focused on Linköping University, for practical geographical reasons first, but also because the university is actively pursuing internationalization strategies (Linköpings universitet, 2017). Two of the interviewees have recently graduated and have now

transitioned to work permit.

Interviews were done in calm public spaces, mostly in Linköping’s university buildings, as it was a practical place of encounter for both my participants and I. Interviews were planned according to the participants’ schedule and time constraints, always

emphasizing my high flexibility to their availability. Eight of the nine interviews were recorded and transcribed. The audio recordings lasted from one hour to two hours. They were, most of the time, a bit more than an hour long. This discrepancy is due to my willingness to hear my interviewees’ stories and experiences. Studying abroad has deep repercussions on one’s life, discussing their application process often triggered deep reflection over how they were feeling at the moment with their studies.

The interview guide was structured around the application’s process key moments. The steps in the journey to Sweden, from imaginaries and previous studies to the actual travel to Sweden. I was nonetheless very open to digression concerning their study as it would enhance my comprehension of their situation. Following Stéphane Beaud and Florence Weber methodological reflections, my questions were oriented towards practices, rather than

“opinions”. I tried to ask practical and direct questions in order to trigger discussion. I showed a particular interest when anecdotes were disclosed as they often permit to illustrate complex social situations (Beaud and Weber, 2010, pp. 191–192). The questions focused around the different necessary steps to come and study in Sweden.

I asked practical questions on these different procedures of the application process to study in Sweden. What was necessary in order to provide the various documents, if they had to translate them, if they were recognized as such, or if they had to get an extra stamp for

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them to be recognized for example. Same for the application to different scholarships. Once they were accepted, how did it go for the residence permit application, the payment of tuition fees, how did they manage to provide the proof they had sufficient means of living on their own bank asset. I mostly focused on the timeline prior to arrival, from when they ‘heard’ about or thought of studying abroad, to their arrival in the classroom. This, made it possible to bring out a set of practices, social relations and different forms of capital mobilized to complete the journey. I asked very basic questions that made it possible to highlight a set of practices. This brought out many things that can be analyzed in terms of governmentality and social, cultural, economic, symbolic and mobility capitals. These practices also enabled me to grasp the strategies deployed by HEIs and a multiplicity of other actors, while giving room for the agentivity of students, and their resistance practices in the form of tactics.

1.5.3 Data Analysis

Since the data was of a reasonable size, I manually coded the transcripts in an inductive manner. I progressively delimited main themes that would guide my analysis. The four remaining audio recordings were selectively transcribed around the themes that had been identified as relevant for analysis. I then connected this coding to a larger theoretical framework that was reworked to best fit the themes that had been developed from the material. In my transcription, I chose to transmit the non-verbal expressions of my

interviewees the best I could while remaining readable. This in order to transmit emotions, intonation and over non-verbal expressions, as highlighted by McLellan-Lemal et al. (2003).

English not being the main language of most of my participants, I chose to correct major grammatical errors both for myself (as an interviewer), and the participants, as long as it didn’t alter the meaning of the words pronounced. This in order to facilitate the

comprehension by the reader, while remaining true to the information spoken. My analysis focused first and foremost on the information rather than the communication level, following transcription recommendations made by Daniel G. Oliver and his colleagues (2005).

I chose to restrain the analysis to the time-frame between the application procedure and the beginning of studies. This choice of timeline seemed the most appropriate in order to capture the ambivalence between processes of internationalization and migration

management, while at the same time structuring the interviews around a certain frame. Nonetheless, I let the discussions evolve around other moments of the student migrant’s experience. Especially for those that were in their second year of master’s program or had

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already graduated, as they had to go through different application procedures, for renewal of residence permit, transition to work permit etc.

Deep feelings of isolation were expressed. Dichotomous us/them and

ethno-essentialist narratives were common in the depiction of their experiences. These feelings of exclusion are central to the experience of abroad studies. As mentioned in previous literature and reflections on categories, I believe these dynamics are inherent to the international student’s category as it is framed in neo-liberalized higher education space. Even though I don’t address these feelings directly in this work, they remain a strong incentive towards this thought process.

Throughout my analysis I have tried to emphasis the role played by institutions and policies in shaping this journey, with a particular attention to the agentivity and resistance practices that students are able to deploy throughout the process. A major limitation in this study that has to be taken into account, is that it focuses precisely on those that actually are here. None of those that were rejected, couldn’t or didn’t want to make it, are in the picture. Even though I got information about this kind of situation from my informants. Therefore, the analysis presented below has to be seen with this perspective in mind.

1.5.4 Ethical Considerations

I have here sought to follow the Swedish Research Council guidance on ethical consideration (Swedish Research Council, 2017). Interviewees were told the study’s purposes when asked to participate. I gave clear indications on what the study was meant for, and what it

encompassed. Participants were asked if they were willing to be interviewed on how they had managed the application process for studies in Sweden. I asked orally and sometime through textual communication, also asking if they accepted to be interviewed and audio recorded for the purpose of the study. I made sure to ask for authorization to audio record, this in a clear manner, and made sure to get approval before and after the interviews. I informed participants that their personal data would be anonymized. In my handling of the material I made sure to protect their anonymity and personal data. All audio recordings will be deleted after

completion of this work. Participants that were directly mentioned in the analysis were asked to choose a pseudonym to which they will be referenced to. My interviewees being in a set of interrelations socially close to the direct audience of this work, I willingly kept a certain blurriness in the way I presented them in order to protect their anonymity. For example, not

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all of the nine interviewees are directly mentioned here, they are all part of the analysis, but some were willingly used in more general terms, in order to protect the anonymity of

participants that were socially too close to the direct audience of this thesis. The study being presented to participants as anonymous, I have sought to respect this the best I could, even though the data presented here is not, for the most part, of a sensitive nature. Personal details in their stories that could have led to direct authentication have been avoided. Some details not fundamental for the analysis have thus been intentionally omitted.

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2. Analytical Chapter

2.1 Sweden’s Internationalization Strategies, from the Students’

Point of View

“Don’t just pick a place, pick a future” (studyinsweden.se, 2019) In this section I will describe Sweden’s internationalization strategies from the students’ point of view. In order to gain shares in a growing market, a set of actors linked to higher education undertake a set of strategies. These institutional actors are trying to attract student and make their journey as smooth as possible. This, in a broader aim to make Sweden a destination of choice for students willing to study abroad. Promotion, marketing, extensive support and help in the application process are organized by Sweden to reach its global knowledge society goals. In this sections I will describe some of these strategies and how they are perceived by third country national students. Rather than looking for exhaustivity in the description of the strategies and tools used, I will highlight the ones central to the students’ journey through the application process. Data presented here is primarily issued from my informants. I completed this information through online ethnography of Sweden’s official websites designed to inform these students.

2.1.1 The Application Process’ Structuring Institutions

A set of institutions are key to understand the Swedish context of internationalization of Higher Education, as they all aim for the interest of Sweden, but sometimes have conflicting means and goals. They are all key to understand the journey to Swedish Higher Education Institutions. Below are the most important ones, as they structure the application process:

• Swedish Higher Education Institutions, in particular for this study, Linköping University.

• Universityadmission.se, the centralized website where students apply to Swedish universities.

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• Sweden’s diplomatic investments, its embassies and consulates, and more generally geo-political and socio-economic interests.

• The Swedish Institute, through its different grant programs, studyinsweden.se, its alumni network, its close links to Swedish authorities, embassies and consulates.

2.1.2 Online Presence

One of the most important tool to attract students is the presence on online channels of communication. It is the primary place of advertisement and promotion. It is done via multiple networks. For example, having a good place on different international university rankings is essential. Interviewees very often mentioned spontaneously Linköping

University’s international ranking position and how it was important for them or not. Often not being the primary motivation for choosing their particular program, rankings were still something they would refer to in order to get an idea of what they would invest in.

Throughout the application process’ steps, different institutions are directly interacting with potential students through their online presence. This is done via marketing strategies and promotions, but most importantly through the extensive guidelines and tutorials they provide. Most of the advertisement, guidelines and communication are done through a set of websites created and designed for this purpose such as studyinsweden.se or

universityadmission.se.

All my informants applied online. Most of them got knowledge of Swedish higher education through online searches. Other informants had heard of Swedish HEIs through friends or alumni from their previous studies. On these websites, each step of the application is carefully explained and guided. Very heterogeneous conditions are to be fulfilled

depending on one’s country of origin or previous studies. In this application process, Universityadmission.se is seen as a very well-designed admission website. Key dates, deadlines, requirements are carefully explained. It allows students to apply to up to four Swedish HEIs through the same portal of application. Thus, having to submit each necessary document only once, and pay an application fee once. This centralized space of application to all Swedish universities was highly appreciated by my interviewees. This always in

comparison to other systems of higher education they encountered, where each university had its own application procedure and application fee to be paid.

Between logics of attractivity and migration management : Third-country national students’ application process to Sweden&apos;s Higher Education Institutions