Autographics as autoethnography: comic book adventures of a migrant academic

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I utilize autographics as an autoethnographic methodology to illustrate the subjective experience of being a precariously employed migrant academic in Australia. The autographic narrative, as well as the traditional text, are in dialogue with Sara Ahmed’s work on migration and estrangement, in order to explore migration both as a physical movement between countries, but also as a metaphorical movement between different forms of writing – scholarly texts and comics – and the communities associated with them – Academia and the Zine scene. Ahmed explores critical theory’s celebration of migration as a metaphor for transgression, a symbolic act of abandoning the familiar, the traditional and safe patterns of thinking to embark on adventures across borders and boundaries. My own presumptions regarding a literal migration in physical space were conflated with this metaphorical meaning, as I saw it as a liberatory move to reflect on – and re-invent – myself, breaking away from a national identity which I found stifling. My actual experience of migration turned out to be one of dislocation and isolation. In order to escape feelings of anxiety, I sought refuge in another metaphor: academia, and later the zine scene as an alternative ‘homeland.’

KEYWORDS:

• Comics
• migrant academics
• zines
• graphic scholarship

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr Helena Bolle, Dr Safdar Ahmed and Dr Daniella Trimboli for providing feedback on an early draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As many casual academics, I have changed the direction of my career by taking teaching only/professional roles at the university. I have held fixed-term contracts as a senior teacher, and more recently as a programme manager in a university pathway college since 2016, where conducting research is not within my job description.

2. This was the first year the Other Worlds Zine Fair was organized. It was a community event organized by volunteers in protest of the 2014 Sydney Biennale and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Zine Fair due to their sponsorship ties with off-shore detention centre operator Transfield. In 2015, I joined the group of volunteer organizers and have helped run Other Worlds Zine Fair every year since then.