Potencial turístico del territorio

irreducibly multiple and irreducibly distributed between different practices across time and space” (Law & Singleton 2014, p.392). In taking up complexity – or the multiplicity of realities – policy might be framed to consider different arrangements of actors, which could impact students’ experiences more positively.

The ontology that brings this study to life stands as a critique of the binary, deterministic dichotomies of Cartesian thinking that have established much of the form in which scientific work has been done in the last centuries. I argue that possibilities of challenging taken-for-granted assumptions and exploring controversies – both theoretical and empirical – can offer Other ways of knowing about international education, a field magnanimously conquered by anthropocentrism and sociocentrism.

1.5 Composition of the Thesis

Before displaying the composition in which this thesis was crafted, I would like to flag to the reader that I attribute a great importance to the use of footnotes. Such importance has an ontological rationale as I reject a priori levels and encourage ontological flatness. In academic writing, footnotes are used to add information to a sentence, whether further readings, bibliographical references, or to guide the reader through the continuation of an argument that would hinder the flow of the text – features that appear in this thesis. I also provide page numbers for arguments that are located elsewhere in the thesis, but are related to the main

body of text. In this way, I attempt to enable connections between arguments that are separated by pages, yet related. This thesis is composed by eight chapters, as follows.

Chapter 2 surveys relevant “out-thereness” (Law 2004), or scientific material published in the field of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), globalisation, international education, and social capital. More than acting as a frame in which this study is “placed”, the material I expose in this chapter should be seen as the way science is organising the worlds of the actors that relate to the phenomenon of interest. From a “translator” perspective, this chapter represents my process of enrolling other actors (theories and concepts) in order to generate “out-thereness” (the thesis as a whole, or scientific knowledge).

Chapter 3 sets the scene for the intricacies of the craft of this study, revealing the processes of knowledge generation. This chapter explains the use of an ANT case study methodology; how the participants (both human and non-human) were assembled; which methods were chosen to enact (and discover) realities; and how the empirical data was further transformed. It concludes with considerations of ethics in research.

Chapter 4 describes the international education stories of twelve students (and my own), focusing on the relations (translations) enacted by these students with an array of actors, and the effects generated by these associations. This chapter follows ANT’s position to remain as close as possible to the practices and the world(s) depicted by the actors themselves, with a focus on their theorisations on

the idea of social capital. All stories can be seen as the first effects generated by the task of “following the actors” (international students) from which the remaining Discussion Chapters (5,6,7) emerged. This chapter is closely connected to Appendices A-M. Each of the twelve stories (and the reflective vignette) displayed in this chapter has their continuation in the referred Appendices9.

Chapter 5 analyses the roles played by non-human entities in the world(s) of international education, altering the way realities are performed. It can be seen as a contribution to the debate on non-human agency, reinforcing my ontological position on the hybridisation of entities, and demonstrating how the associations of non-human and human entities have an impact on one another’s nature of being. Given the provocative ANT ontological teachings, this chapter opens space for a discussion on the analytical symmetry adopted by ANT when analysing relations between human and non-human entities.

Chapter 6 analyses the concept of “social capital actor-networks”, formed by an encounter between more traditional social capital postulates and an ANT ontology. Such articulation advocates a more democratic conceptualisation of social capital, focused on processes, where more actors should have their agency acknowledged. This chapter thus, accepts ANT’s invitation to change, distort, and betray ANT itself. It continues by discussing the shifts in social capital actor- networks when students become mobile, illuminating complex issues of work, language, and community in the newly performed space.

Chapter 7 analyses Ireland’s current international education policy strategy. The focus is on the enactment of power relationships and processes that formed the “internationalisation-policy-actor-network”, allowing it to be seen as one macro entity that produces effects in the world and alters the realities of other actors, such as mobile students. I also propose an alternative way of seeing how policy actors can be assembled.

Chapter 8 closes the file, exposing the contributions this study offer to knowledge. The limitations of this study are outlined and indications for future research are flagged. I make a few recommendations that emerged from my process of data analysis and reflection.

Apart from Chapters 1, 2, and 3, all other chapters close with a reflective vignette at the end. This is aligned with the reflective and performative nature of this study, and the “unmodern” manner to represent reality – or the refusal to demarcate a priori ontological borders between subject and object.