Skilled Migrants and Negotiations: New Identities, Belonging, Home and Settlement

ABSTRACT

Issues of identity, home and belonging underline most transnational and transmigrational experiences. Globally, there is increasing interest in issues related to the settlement of migrants; yet there is growing evidence on a quotidian basis that migrant settlement into a host country is not a smooth experience. Drawing on qualitative empirical work, involving a large cross section of ethnically diverse skilled migrants located in a regional Australian centre, this article explores the issue of settlement through considering how the concepts of identity, belonging, settlement and home are presented in narrative accounts from skilled migrants to Australia. Intersectional theoretical frameworks are used to explore migrants’ perceptions of identity, belonging and home in negotiating and realising their new settlement. This also helps highlight the differences in skilled and non-skilled experiences using visa status, gender, education, ethnicity and socio-economic status/class to conduct an intersectional analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration studies
• migrants
• settlement
• regional
• rural
• home
• identities
• hybridity
• Australia
• diaspora
• belonging
• space

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sue Webb, PhD, is a Professor of Education at Monash University, Australia and was previously Professor and Director of the Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of Sheffield, UK. A joint editor of the International Journal of Lifelong Education, her research focuses on social inequality in access and participation in further/higher education and through migration. She has recently co-edited The Palgrave International Handbook on Adult and Lifelong Education and Learning.

Reshmi Lahiri-Roy, PhD, is with Deakin University's School of Education. Her research interests include Sociology of Education, Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies, Migrant and Gender issues in education along with Bollywood and Diasporic Cinema. Her current research looks at issues of identity and belonging in relation to diasporas with special focus on women migrants within the spaces of education, sociology and cultural studies.