Transitions: Journal of Transient Migration - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2020

Perceived discrimination (PD) in the field of discourse analysis is the study of discourse that focuses on the perspectives of the victims of discrimination, exploring what they say and how they say it. This article studies the discourse of PD of ten Latin American immigrants to Brisbane, during semi-structured, co-constructed interviews. Data were classified into a typology of discrimination that identified verbal and non-verbal forms. The analysis of these forms shows that the verbal form ‘microagressions’ dominated the discourse and that most experiences had a connection with ‘accent’ as a triggering factor. In some cases, participants were ‘new’ to discrimination and they reported confusion regarding the nature of the experience and a deep emotional weight. Other participants reported discrimination as pervasive and covert, mainly occurring in the workplace. Participants resorted to several discursive strategies when conveying their experiences: mitigation strategies when wanting to minimize it and hedging and repetition to convey urgency and pervasiveness. Metaphorical expressions relating to illness and injury were also used to express the powerful effect of discrimination on people.

This article identifies five main mobility characteristics of international students from Latin America in Australia by comparative analysis of the overall student population. International student numbers from Latin America to Australia have reached unprecedented levels. A growing body of research exists on Latin American migrants in Australia and scholars such as Burges and Calderon have provided insightful analyses into educational trade relations between the two. Despite this, there still lacks a deeper understanding of the mobility characteristics of Latin American students, embedded within the scholarship of international migration broadly and international student mobility (ISM) specifically. In order to address this gap, the article interprets publicly available data in a growing segment of ISM research that understands mobility as an ongoing, processional and lifelong journey. This article therefore paints a picture of what we already know and what we still need to find out about Latin American students in Australia.

Universities are important drivers for transnational migration to Australia, especially for students who are economically mobile, or who might be seeking to convert a transitory study experience into a more permanent migratory one. The economic growth experienced in a number of Latin American countries in the twenty-first century introduced new cohorts of Latin American students into Australian tertiary education institutions, including some from countries that may have had minimal prior presence in Australia. This includes students working towards research degrees. This article presents the autoethnographic accounts of four doctoral candidates from Latin America studying in Australia. It considers their motivations for undertaking graduate research, and the factors that brought them to choose Australia as a study destination, and the benefits and challenges they have experienced in coming here. While the candidates are all from different research fields, their experiences reveal commonalities around three key themes: opportunity, safe exploration and the role of family in enabling decisions about transnational doctoral education.

The literature on transnational migrations tells us that new migrants often look for points of similarity and familiarity with people in destination countries. Whether they intend to settle permanently or if they are transient and temporary, new migrants whatever their histories (e.g., as forced, lifestyle, economic, worker and study migrants) look to create connections with people in destination countries. These connections allow migrants to feel a sense of belonging through established or new community networks that anchor them in their adopted/host country. Moreover, these connections provide practical benefit in terms of allowing migrants to access sources of support (e.g., emotional) and information that are useful in navigating everyday life in the new country. Often, the connections that migrants make are with fellow migrants who are from the same country of origin or migrants from elsewhere primarily because of their shared migration experience. This shared migration experience though is subject to variables such as socio-economic class, education levels, religious affiliation and gender, or a combination of these, just to name a few. For migrants, connecting with people who they identify and recognize as fellow migrant actors, in other words, is a common, if not, instinctual occurrence for migrant belonging-making. While this article acknowledges the significance of the identity-migrant nexus by referring to two separate research projects conducted in Australia involving Latin American participants as a case study, it observes that migrants may also seek out those who they perceive to be fellow co-national/co-ethnic migrants through conventional or perceived visual and cultural markers.

Student support in contemporary educational settings is vastly different from what it was when international education became a visible presence on Australian campuses in the 1950s. At that time, community organizations, businesses and the government cooperated to provide support to students in Australia, with little support being offered formally through universities and colleges. These Co-ordinating Committees survived for decades, into the 1990s. It could be argued that these Co-ordinating Committees facilitated a community engagement in international education that has not continued as the number of students has multiplied. Using archival and other primary source documents, this article will look at the beginnings of the Australian Organisations’ Co-ordinating Committee for Overseas Students (AOCCOS), and other similar organizations. It will analyse how the Committees changed over the decades of their existence, and what role they played in influencing government policies.

The article will also investigate when and why these Committees ended, and what, if anything, has taken their place. The huge expansion of the international education sector, with more than half a million students now studying in Australia as international students, has impacted the quantity and quality of engagement with the Australian community for many of these students.

Finally, the article will look at efforts to engage the community in the support of, and engagement with, international students in Australia in a more contemporary setting. This includes support provided by institutions, community and sporting organizations and state government and municipal councils.