The Politics of a Passport to Design Practice

This chapter shares perspectives on the notion of a portfolio functioning as a passport that provides access to professional design practice from transnational design students and graduates. By comparing a design portfolio as a passport to professional practice with the political and geographic system of passports as objects that regulate mobility, the research presents a case of how a system requiring passports can perpetuate inequalities in educational and professional opportunities. The ethnographic insights shared are part of a doctoral project on the commodification of education and the global trade of higher education services, specifically, transnational design education. Transnational education is a system of education where students live in a country different from where the awarding institution is based; higher education services, not students, cross national borders. The qualitative research explores the value of a British design education in Sri Lanka, a country with a different social, economic, and cultural context by examining a franchise partnership between a university in England and a private, franchised design institute in Sri Lanka. The lived experiences of students and graduates in Sri Lanka provide diverse perspectives on accessing professional communities of local and global design practice in a place where design, as a discipline or service, is not particularly valued.