This book addresses agency and habitus development of migrant academics in Japan and reveals the complexity of international academic mobility in East Asian contexts. It addresses differentiated transnational academic mobility routes and route-confined capitals and dispositions, the effect of stratified social networks and network embeddedness on international academic mobility, and the effect of unequal globalization and the asymmetrical internationalization of international academic mobility.

The book highlights the roles of transnationally stretched social network development and network embeddedness along life trajectories, locating them as critical infrastructures of mobilities and identifying an array of individual social network building and maintenance strategies and principles. It illustrates how familial, educational, academic and social networks across borders facilitate and channel flows of capitals and resources vital for academic performance and upward academic mobility of migrated academics.

It draws on a range of theoretical frameworks of Bourdieusian theory of sociology, transnationalism and qualitative social network analysis. The research is based on 26 case studies of migrant scholars in Japan, using narrative inquiry and qualitative social network analysis. The work provides multiple implications for practitioners, policy makers and researchers who seek answers to the sustainability of the internationalization of higher education in Asia Pacific and emerging higher education hubs.