Xiang Biao is Rcuk academic fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and a research officer working with the Compas programme on ‘sending contexts.’ He has conducted extensive field research on migration and social change in China, India and Australia. His main work includes ethnographic studies on a migrant community in Beijing (Transcending Boundaries, Leiden, Brill Academic, 2005), migrant workers in south China, Indian migrant computer professionals (Global ‘Body Shopping’, Princeton, Pinceton University Press, 2006) and skilled migrants from China. Biao is currently working on international labor migration from China and transnational governance in East Asia. Conceptually he is interested in globalization, governance, labor and uncertainty. He remains deeply interested in India-China comparison/connections.
Institutionalized education in most part of the human society seems intrinsically hierarchical. One is supposed to progress from a ‘lower’ level of learning to the ‘higher’; ‘average’ kids study in mediocre schools, and the ‘outstanding’ go to top colleges; and, finally, ‘degree’ is by definition hierarchical. Recent discussions on higher education have focused on the [...]
