"I wanted a PhD, not a label"

Capital constraints, symbolic stigma, and Chinese international doctoral mobility to Southeast Asia

Abstract

This study examines Chinese international doctoral mobility to Southeast Asia as a process shaped by unequal distributions of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital. Moving beyond push–pull and rational-choice explanations, it explores how doctoral pathways form, are sustained, and are evaluated under conditions of structural constraint. Based on semi-structured interviews with 18 Chinese doctoral students enrolled in public universities in Malaysia and Thailand, the findings identify three interconnected stages of mobility: pathway formation, maintenance, and conversion. Economic, cultural, and social capital shaped the range of destinations participants perceived as feasible, while cultural and social capital continued to influence academic participation and pathway sustainability after enrollment. As participants considered their post-PhD futures, symbolic capital became increasingly important in shaping expectations of credential recognition and future career opportunities. The study introduces path convergence to explain how different configurations of constraint can lead students toward overlapping sets of feasible mobility pathways, and stage-specific capital effects to capture changes in the relative salience and function of capital across the doctoral trajectory. The study contributes a process-oriented perspective to scholarship on South–South doctoral mobility and unequal systems of recognition in global higher education.