Ongoing Mobility Trajectories: Lived Experiences of Global Migration

207 Pages·2019·2 MB·English

by  Rosie Roberts

Rosie Roberts
Ongoing
Mobility
Trajectories
Lived Experiences of Global Migration
Ongoing Mobility Trajectories
Rosie Roberts
Ongoing Mobility
Trajectories
Lived Experiences of Global Migration
123
Rosie Roberts
School of Creative Industries
University of South Australia
Adelaide, SA, Australia
ISBN 978-981-13-3163-3 ISBN 978-981-13-3164-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3164-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964688
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Acknowledgements
This book is based on people’s personal stories of migration. I am deeply grateful to
each of the thirty-three people involved in this research who trusted me with their
stories over the past 7 years, and I hope that I have done them justice. I would like
to thank those who provided constructive and thoughtful feedback on draft chapters
(Dr. Dianne Bills, Associate Professor Jodie George, Professor Carol Johnson,
Professor Susan Luckman, Associate Professor Sabine Marschall, Associate
Professor Angela Scarino, Dr. Jonathan Crichton, Dr. Shanthi Robertson and Dr.
Kylie Jarrett) and to my doctoral supervisors, Dr. Jean Duruz and Associate
Professor Peter Bishop, for their insights and conversation in the early stages of this
research. I am also grateful to Springer and the editorial team for supporting this
project. Most importantly, I would like to thank my family for their love and sense
of humour—Rhys, Mum, Dad, Jordan, Juliet, Eloise, Sunni, Kate and
Harley-the-dragon.
This book was born out of my doctoral research. I am thankful for the financial
support provided through an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) that enabled me
to undertake this project and a Maurice de Rohan International Scholarship to
undertake research interviews overseas.
Parts of Chap. 4 were originally published in ‘Travelling Memories’: The
Homemaking Practices of Skilled Mobile Settlers. In S. Marschall (Ed.). Memory,
Migration and Travel (2018), pp. 24–44. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
v
Contents
Part I Trajectories
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Mobile Lives: The Fluidity of Australian Immigration
and Emigration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.1 Immigration to Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.2 Emigration from Australia by Overseas and Australian
Born . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 Conceptualising the ‘Skilled Migrant’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4 From Migration to Mobility: Longitudinal Approaches to Mobile
Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.5 The Research Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.6 Structure of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2 Tactics and Risk Under Conditions of Multi-stage Migration
to Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2 Education-Led Migration: The Australian Context . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3 Institutional Policy Meets Lived Practice: Enacting Agency
Under Conditions of Multi-stage Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3 Onward Migration Pathways Over Time and Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2 Practices of Mobile (Re)settlement Over Time and Space . . . . . . . 52
3.2.1 Life Course Perspectives on the Shifting Family
and Career Negotiations of Skilled Mobile Settlers . . . . . . 53
vii
viii Contents
3.2.2 Trailblazing Pathways of Skilled Migrant Women . . . . . . . 64
3.2.3 Onward Migration Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Part II Practices and Connections
4 Everyday Practices of Home-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.2 Surrogate Landscapes, Traveling Objects and Well-Worn
Pavements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.2.1 Surrogate Homes: ‘I Suddenly Have a Sensation
of ‘Home’...but It Doesn’t Last’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.2.2 Traveling Objects: ‘I’m Bringing My Life with Me,
I Even Packed My Wooden Spoons’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.2.3 Well-Worn Pavements: ‘Trying to Build a Geographic
Mental Map’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5 Arrivals, Departures and Returns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.2 Arrivals: ‘My Sense of Being Foreign, a Clumsy Transplant
in a New Land’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.3 Returns as Reorientations: ‘It Just Felt like an Explosion
of Arrivals and Departures All at the Same Time’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6 Citizenly Identities and Translocal Belonging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.2 Conceptualising Citizenly Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.3 Negotiating ‘Citizenly Identities’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.3.1 National Identity and Everyday Rituals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
6.3.2 Singular Loyalties and Negotiations of Guilt . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.3.3 Translocal Connections: ‘That Misplaced Idea that
You Can Only Be Loyal to One Thing at a Time’ . . . . . . . 154
6.4 Destabilising and Reinscribing Citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Contents ix
Part III Stories
7 Mobility Narratives and Shifting Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.1 Introduction: ‘Small Stories’ and ‘Preferred Selves’ . . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.2 The Currency of Story-Telling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.3 Active Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.3.1 Emily: ‘I’m Black, Not Deaf, So You Don’t Need
to Shout’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.3.2 Amar: ‘Somebody like Me with a Turban, with Skin
Colour That’s Different... People Are Always Going
to Assume Something About My Identity’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
7.3.3 Sharon: ‘I like the Flexibility that These Different
Personae Offer’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
7.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.2 Ongoing Trajectories and Temporary Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
8.3 Multiple Home Sites, Connections and Citizenly Identities . . . . . . 201
8.4 Narrating Experiences of Mobility and Resettlement . . . . . . . . . . . 204
8.5 Reshaping Migration Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Part I
Trajectories
Chapter 1
Introduction
Abstract The introductory chapter examines the value of viewing Australia as a
single site within a range of transnational connections. Until recently, Aus-
tralian migration research and policy has been concerned with what Ley and
Kobayashi (2005, p. 112) describe as the traditional migration narrative of
‘departure, arrival and settlement’. Instead, this book argues for a more expansive
understanding of Australia within globalmigration flows, which recognises the expe-
rience of contemporary migration as a complex matrix of interactions and connec-
tions over time and space, rather than linear and permanent migration. This research
began as an exploration of skilled migration. However, as the research progressed
and the lives of those interviewed unfolded, it became clear that being a ‘skilled
migrant’ was just one categorization that they occupied over their lives and often
through a series of migrations. However, with skilled migration as my starting point,
I begin this chapter with an analysis of theoretical and empirical research in this field,
to problematize the labour driven perspectives of this migrant classification. I argue
that there is a need to separate the conceptualisation of skilled migrants as those who
engage in official labour channels from people who embody the concept of skills
but migrate in other ways, such as spouses and family-sponsored migrants who are
not recognised in a country’s official skilled migration statistics. When differences
among skilled migrants are often as great as the distinctions between skilled and
unskilled, there is a need for more empirical research that recognises and investi-
gates this diversity by attending to the everyday, affective and embodied experiences
of these migrants over their lives. A longitudinal and biographical approach to the
study of migration brings together spatial, temporal and relational frames, through
which to understand the often messy, and evolving experiences of resettlement and
belonging.
Keywords Temporary migration · Skilled migration · Middling transnationalism
Australia · Spatiality · Temporality
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 3
R. Roberts, Ongoing Mobility Trajectories,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3164-0_1