Student paths: a global history of student mobility in Asia (British India - French Indochina, 1850s-1940s)
Author: Legrandjacques, Sara
Under the direction of: Pierre Singaravélou
Paris 1 University
Texte français
Keywords: History, Indochina, British India, Indochina, Mobility, Higher education, Student, Global history, Colonization, Migration history, Students - mobility - India - 1765 - 1947 (British Occupation), Higher education, University cities, Foreign students, Emigration and immigration.
Abstract
This work offers to reflect on the global rise of the mobility of students in Asia between the mid-nineteenth century and the end of the Second World War. To do so, it explores more precisely the cases of two colonies, each belonging to a distinct empire – the British Raj and French Indochina. While the first Indian universities were founded in 1857, it was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that “écoles supérieures” emerged in the Indochinese peninsula. From then on, the access to higher and technical education begot fluxes which spread both in the colonies and beyond their borders. This interweaving of scales is at the core of the present thesis which, in order to grasp it fully, resorts to the tools of comparison and connection. A global approach to student mobility needs to be able to demonstrate that these movements are an essential characteristic of higher and technical education, and that they participate in the structuration of the latter and of the societies into which these fluxes fit. Therefore, the present thesis examines student mobility in its entirety, from the departure and its preparation to the return home, including the journey – the perfect illustration of mobility – and the study trip. The first part is chronologically organised and offers to reflect on the ruptures and continuities which characterise the development of educational migrations at the age of empires. The impetus of the second part of the nineteenth century gave way to a global watershed in the course of the first decades of the twentieth century, the scope and features of which need rethinking. Between the first and second world wars, those fluxes reached a peak on every level, without being jeopardised by geopolitical or military tensions. Since the journey in itself epitomises the entry into mobility, the second part is dedicated to the student experience during the educational stay. It first unveils the issues connected to the reception of the candidates, a decisive moment for the smooth running of their studies. The admission to higher education institutes however proved challenging and it underlined the great diversity of students’ trajectories. In doing so, individuals leaving or reaching colonies in South Asia or South-East Asia fitted into student communities, the borders of which remained shifting, and into a larger political and social framework. To conclude, the completion of the mobility provides an opportunity to measure the impact of the latter on individual and collective journeys in a colonial and imperial context.
