Entrenamiento y evaluación de los resultados

The struggles and challenges encountered in the contact zone act as a catalyst for students to formulate narratives of return, which in turn sheds light on the contents of their national identities. For Abbas, a PhD student from Pakistan, studying in Todai has changed his local and global imaginaries, opening his eyes to how others view Pakistan, and this motivates him to return to contribute to his country,

‘I have a stronger motivation to return and help my country because the what I’ve learnt here show that my country is going down economically, and in terms of security…everything…but I don’t want to let that happen. Therefore I have a strong motivation to return and work really hard…I heard a lecture this weekend (in Todai), given by a Nobel Laureate, and he said he has no hope for Pakistan for the next thirty years, that it’s going to be even worse than Somalia, I don’t want that to happen’ (Abbas, Pakistan, Todai , PhD)

As a student in Todai, he has the opportunity to be exposed to information about his country which otherwise could be hard to access if he were in Pakistan. Having

acquired the ‘facts’ about Pakistan from abroad, Abbas is adamant about his responsibility to improve the situation in his own capacity, comparing himself to others who have shirked this calling.

‘I don’t want to be like those who have migrated to other countries just because they think our country is going down economically’ (Abbas, Pakistan, Todai, PhD)

However, even with such a strong conviction, Abbas’ narrative of return is constantly dilemmatic, with his parents’ hopes for him to lead a better life abroad.

‘I want to go back but my parents are concerned…they want me to live abroad permanently…saying that it’s going to help me economically, a better future for me and my family...but I’ve always wanted to serve my country. I was born there, raised there, had my education there…I am a part of my country;

how can I leave my country like that? I have to be responsible and return. I hope I really do it’ (Abbas, Pakistan, Todai, PhD)

Here, we see that for Abbas, the desire to contribute to his country directly affects his future mobility trajectory. On the other hand, Kim, a NUS Vietnamese student who majors in Psychology, actively sought out an opportunity to contribute to social science research in Vietnam through an NUS alumni-led group based in Singapore, Vietnam 2020, seeing it as a way to fulfil her obligation to her country,

‘We formed a group to discuss how we can bring social sciences into Vietnam, because those of us who have graduated from NUS realized a greater need for graduates of Social sciences to return to Vietnam. The development in Vietnam is changing very rapidly whereas the Social Science infrastructure is absent. There are a great number of things that we can do in Vietnam. It is now recognizing the need to pull back the talent to do Social sciences…so we try to bridge the demand there and supply here…I’ve always wanted to do service for myself and for my country, so I think this is a good chance to do it’

(Kim, NUS, Vietnam, undergraduate)

Bridging Singapore and Vietnam, Kim shares similar sentiments with Abbas about the importance and desire to contribute to the academic research (and thus overall

well-being) in her country. However, unlike Abbas, this calling need not bind her physically to Vietnam.

‘I love my country, that’s something everybody would say, but while you can love someone, you don’t have to marry them. Even if you marry someone else you can still say you love the other person. I rationalize that I love my country, and I want to contribute to my country but that is not the place where I will shape my education, my future, my life, it must be somewhere else’ (Kim, Vietnam, NUS, undergraduate)

Her artful response attests to the fluid nature of mobile youth geographies.

Apart from desires to contribute to home countries upon acquiring an education abroad, students’ identities are also constantly bound up with familial obligations that continue to ‘follow’ them in their study abroad experience. This shows that, far from the dominant footloose, strategic and self-seeking discourses that depict students’

motivations for studying abroad, the experience of the contact zone is often influenced by their continuing roles in the family. Though Wenjie enjoys campus life in NUS, being in Singapore also meant bearing the guilt and responsibility for his younger sister’s poor academic performance.

‘My sister’s not doing well in school. I feel bad about it because I am not there…I wasn’t there to encourage her…as the elder brother, I’ve always been teaching and helping her with schoolwork. The year she entered secondary school, I came here to Singapore, so it wxas transition for me and her too. She didn’t adapt well and has failed several subjects already…this would be my biggest trade-off for coming here…because of my responsibility to my sister… I missed out on her, especially when she went through puberty, adolescent, the teenage years; I missed out on all that while I was living my life here. So there is always this regret’ (Wenjie, Malaysia, NUS, undergraduate)

The sense of having ‘lost time and space’ due to not being able to fulfil his responsibility to his sister makes Wenjie more aware of the geographical tensions of

‘being here and not there’ for his family in Malaysia. Familial ties are thus often tied

to ideas of national belonging, as Wenjie explains through the ‘exodus’ of local students from the hostel during weekends,

‘There has always been this tension in me of being in Singapore versus being in Malaysia…my parents are already past their fifties…over here (in NUS), there is no family life. My family is in Malaysia. Even in the hostel, the Singaporeans go back and have family dinners every week…whereas for Malaysians, our families are not here … (for me) the biggest trade-off of studying here would have been family life’ (Wenjie, Malaysia, NUS, undergraduate)

At the contact zones of the study abroad experience, students become aware of their precarious position of straddling the divide between home and host countries. This compels them to (re)define and articulate ties to nation and family as a function of their own mobility projects. This process, far from being static, is subjected to changes along the course of time.