“I don’t want my children to grow up there”: Counter-Narratives to Migration by University Students in Ghana

Abstract

The turn in migration studies to broaden its scope beyond migrants themselves to also include prospective migrants – and even the society they live in – opens for a better understanding of migration. Despite mobile students from the Global South being a key feature of the globalisation of higher education, their voices are underrepresented and undertheorized in migration literature. Student narratives from the Global South can therefore offer new and valuable perspectives. This study contextualizes students’ migration aspirations within a critical view of migration studies and global knowledge production and methodologically centres the students and their narratives. Students at two universities in Ghana were interviewed in focus groups about migration. Findings reveal diversity and contradictions: students speak about migration in simple and even ambiguous terminology suggesting a quotidian quality of the conversation, and the undeniably uncertain and ambiguous future. Students also harbour distinct views on migration connected to class and identity, including various reservations or even counter-narratives to migration such as concerns about racism and discrimination abroad, and the draw of family and culture at home. Additionally, the students in this study, similar to well-researched student migration narratives in the Global North, connect mobility to cultural exposure, enjoyment, and adventure.