Ms Subhadra Roy
PhD student
School of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road
London E1 4NS
s.roy@qmul.ac.uk
Title: Expressing identities and experiencing difference: Spatial practices in the everyday lives of Indian students in London and Toronto.
Abstract
Global mobilities of international students have a distinct geography. The move for international students from their ‘home’ countries to a ‘host’ country entails significant changes in their social lives. Moving across continents and temporarily settling in a ‘foreign’ land are the stepping stones to an intensely mobile existence. They maintain transnational connections with their ‘home’ country, and move across and between different kinds of social and ethnic spaces locally. Using Clifford’s (1997) theoretical concept of dwelling-in-travel, I explore the in-between nature of dwelling and travel, while directly linking it to the socio-spatial identities of Indian international students in London and Toronto. The aim of the research is two-fold. I trace sameness and difference in the everyday lives of Indian students in the two cities with regards to their identities of traveller/tourist/immigrant. The second aim is to understand how Indian students articulate the concept of ‘home’ at three different scales – the dwelling, the city (London/Toronto and their home town in India), and the nation (UK/Canada and India). For the purpose, I conducted 72 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 36 students in London and Toronto. Their narrative accounts were supplemented with photographs of their everyday life, along with a week-long diary of the same.
Keywords: international students, mobilities, identities, home