The Emotional Geographies of Being Stranded Due to COVID-19: A Poetic Autoethnography of an International Doctoral Student

Abstract

This poetic critical autoethnography paper studies my own experiences of disrupted mobility as a Vietnamese doctoral student in New Zealand who was stuck in Vietnam. Through the lens of space and place, I investigate the issues of sense of belonging and sense of place that were reconfigured in different spaces. The article highlights my agency to reinforce and reconnect with my sense of belonging. As the article focuses on immobility, it challenges the mobility bias in international education scholarship, arguing that new forms of mobility can be produced out of immobility and that identity reconstruction can be enabled through respatialization.

Keywords

(im)mobility international doctoral education space sense of belonging COVID-19

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