‘I want to stay but … ’ Exploring the complex desires of international doctoral students’ post-graduation mobility in China

Abstract

International student post-graduation mobility has been widely studied, particularly from developing to developed countries. However, little research has explored this phenomenon in non-traditional destinations like China, now an emerging educational hub for international students. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of desire and Lingard’s notion of global-national-local imbrications, this qualitative study explored how international doctoral students in China form and negotiate their desires to stay or leave after graduation. This research conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 international doctoral students from three leading Chinese universities. The findings showed three flows of desire–productive, disrupted, and constrained–revealing how students’ aspirations are produced, reshaped, and limited by intersecting global, national, and local forces. The study highlights China’s distinctive higher education assemblage as globally aspirational yet locally bounded, offering new insights for researchers and policymakers seeking to enhance international doctoral education in emerging destinations. This research reconceptualises post-graduation mobility as evolving flows of desire rather than push–pull choices and offers practical insights for policymakers and institutions seeking to improve support for international doctoral graduates in emerging higher education destinations.