While waiting for the posting of the next episode of Erasmus lives in Lisbon (very soon!), a new article in portuguese has been published in the brazilian journal “Antropolítica: Revista Contemporânia de Antropologia”. This is the abstract:

The ERASMUS Programme to study abroad is well known throughout Europe, involving about 250,000 exchange students traveling annually through 33 countries. The principles of cultural exchange, education in diversity and transnational mobility make it the banner program for the ideals of the European Union and has a high degree of popularity and consideration among politicians and common people. Moreover, the experiences of personal discovery, emancipation and openness to the cosmopolitanism of those students when they are abroad, constitute an essential “rite of passage” of a particular social group of youth characterized for embodying “Mobiliy Capital”. The “Erasmus”, considered always as a mixture between “student migration” and “youth tourism” are wondered or shocked when they first arrive to a country different than theirs. They adapt or reject their initial contexts and contacts, seeking for a new lives, to finally “discover themselves” in new places (and through new selves). Their Erasmus period is characterized by the transition processes of their lives towards new subjectivities, that are always defined by the strategies of distinction and differentiation of themselves in opposition to other young people in the new context. In this article we will present the life pathways and patterns of adaptation of six foreign students in Lisbon according to their narratives of youth mobility and urban adjustment.

Here you can find the full text article: “Becoming other person”: narratives of subjective transformation and processes of distinction among the young Erasmus students in Lisbon

Secondhand Youth Characters by t-drom