Transnational mobility and the formation of sense of place : a case of exchange students at the University of Helsinki

People are internationally increasingly mobile which is why moving should be rather seen as a lifestyle than something exceptional and exotic as tourism research has traditionally viewed traveling. The new mobility paradigm in the tourism field in fact suggests that tourism should be seen as a part of everyday life. When people move more they are also in contact with more places. The new transnational research, that has predominantly been applied in migration studies, is interested in how mobile people form relationships with the different places that they have spent time in, in other words how they form a sense of place. Traditional migration studies has rather focused on how migrants settle in the new place, whereas the new transnational research is interested in how people can feel a belonging to many places at the same time, thus forming a so called multiple sense of self and perhaps feel at home in many places. Exchange students represent one very mobile group of people. The exchange students desire an international experience whereas nations, cities and educational institutions see the students as an important asset in their aims of internationalization. Branding Helsinki an attractive student city was the topic of a work shop meeting in Autumn 2012 held between The University of Helsinki and the City of Helsinki. The significance of exchange-students for this brand was also highlighted. In this study exchange students are understood as educational tourists, and they were studied from the perspective of the new mobility paradigm as well as the new transnational research. The perspective is fresh because the general experiences of exchange students have not been studied a lot, let alone their sense of place. The aim of this study was to examine the exchange students at The University of Helsinki in the semester of 2012-2013 if and what kind of sense of place they formed. Interesting was to examine whether they formed a strong sense of place because according to transnational theories acquiring a multiple sense of place is possible for mobile groups of people. The sense of place was defined through the concepts of emotional and functional attachment to place. The concepts were examined by analyzing how the students settled in Helsinki, if they felt at home, if they felt local and how they felt that the exchange affected their future mobility. Another aim of the study was to examine which specific aspects of Helsinki affected the sense of place of the students and to suggest how these findings could be of help in suggesting how to brand Helsinki an internationally attractive student city. As a method 25 semi structured interviews with exchange students between January and March of 2013 were performed. The method was suitable for this fresh topic because it allowed for the voice of the students to be heard. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. The results show that the students were emotionally and functionally very attached to Helsinki. They settled in well, felt at home and identified many positive tangible and intangible aspects of the city. This argues for the fact that they had acquired a strong sense of place. The students experienced the city in the company of other people, but the individual experiences were important too. The students did however not feel like locals in the city. The study nevertheless proved that in order to acquire a strong sense of place, one does not have to feel local. The background theories demonstrate that also temporary residents and visitors can acquire a strong sense of place. The findings imply that acquiring a multiple sense of place (in their home country and Helsinki) is indeed possible. The fact that the students felt that they were living a mobile lifestyle now and in the future also speaks for a multiple sense of place. The results show that the exchange students appreciate the friendly Finns, the climate, the greenness of the city and the working society in Helsinki. Therefore this study suggests that these aspects should be used to brand Helsinki an internationally attractive student city in order to accomplish the internationalization aims of both the City of Helsinki and The University of Helsinki.