Internationally mobile academics: Hierarchies, hegemony, and the geo-scientific imagination

The global migration of academic researchers and staff tends to follow a geographical hierarchy that has the USA at its centre. In this paper, we apply Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to explore the way in which the geo-scientific imagination of mobile researchers endorses hierarchies and asymmetries of the international academic system. While academic institutions and practices can be considered instruments for the organization and reproduction of hegemonic relations in civil society, this paper addresses hegemonic relations within the international academic system itself. An analysis of 42 interviews with mobile academics based in Canada and Germany affirms how mobile academics consent to the reproduction of a hegemonic academic hierarchy of countries. At the same time, however, the analysis reveals differentiated views that nest individual universities, departments, and disciplines in the context of national academic systems. The analysis also uncovers interesting shifts in the geo-scientific imagination of global academic hierarchies.