Studying international doctoral researchers: nexus analysis as a mode of inquiry

In this paper I argue how nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004), as a holistic, qualitative mode of inquiry, can offer a fruitful activist research approach to study international doctoral researchers. To do this, I will introduce and explain the core concepts of nexus analysis and afterwards empirically demonstrate how nexus analysis can be done in practice by presenting a case study on international doctoral researchers in a particular nexus—at a Finnish university. The overall aim of this paper is to present nexus analysis as a viable alternative for those higher education researchers who want to study communication, interaction, and language-related challenges of international doctoral researchers from a bottom-up perspective and, in this way, potentially even challenge the existing decision-making practices.