Returning or not returning: desire, becoming and decisions following PhD completion

Abstract

This paper aims to uncover the meanings of the decisions of a group of Vietnamese women doctoral students and academics following the completion of their doctoral studies in Australia. Drawing on interview data with the women and the Deleuzian concept of desire, this paper highlights that their decisions are generated within multiple power relations related to unequal educational resources, contemporary practices of competition across higher education contexts and individual backgrounds of the women. The women navigated through their experiences, challenging and disrupting such power relations while aspiring to become otherwise. The paper suggests how to gear returning mechanism to facilitate the movement of academic knowledge across spaces.