*Message sent from a system outside of UConn.* RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2024 August 27-30, 2024, London
Call for Papers: Everyday Economic Geographies of International Students Session Type: Paper Session, Hybrid (online and in-person) Convenors: Dr E. Alkim Karaagac (Queen's University), Dr Yolande Pottie-Sherman (Memorial University), Dr Nancy Worth (University of Waterloo) Session Description: The number of international students globally has increased significantly over the last decade with the dominance of the Anglophone Global North (namely the US, the UK, Australia and Canada) hosting more than 40 percent of the international student body (Institute of International Education, 2022). International students are expected to boost university revenues through higher tuition fees, build the workforce competitiveness of host countries as workers and potential immigrants, and support the local economies of university towns that rely on student spending. The existing policy environment for international students is contentious. While governments announce ambitious targets to increase the value of education exports and the total number of incoming international students, governments are also implementing more demanding measures to control students' entry and existence in host countries, fostering differential exclusion of international students alongside other temporary migrants. The contrast between the growing contributions of international students to host economies and the deepening abstraction and invisibility of their everyday economic lives poses critical questions for geographers. Following the path of earlier calls for critical approaches to contemporary educational mobilities and the conditions of student migrants through an ethics of care (Madge et al., 2009; Raghuram et al., 2020; Waters and Brooks, 2021), in this session, we aim to decentre dominant economic narratives by focusing on international students and their everyday economic geographies of housing, labour and educational migration markets (Yarker, 2017). We aim to highlight international students' intersectional identities, the privileges they may/ may not have, and their transnational dependencies regarding available resources or debt responsibilities. We hope to bring together scholars of economic geographies, political economy, critical development studies, and postcolonial geographies concerned with international students' lives in host countries, and how they are shaped by social and economic inequalities along the axes of race, gender, class, age and/or others. We want to shed light on international students as full economic agents in housing, labour, and education markets, as well as highlight the social reproduction of life for international students in an ever-changing policy context. We welcome contributions that might include (but are not limited to) theoretical, empirical and methodological engagements with: Everyday Economic Subjectivities -International students and economic agencies (navigating non-citizenship, temporary status, lack of credit history) -International students and interdependency (families, dependants, and the transnational flow of debts, remittances, allowances, and caring responsibilities) -International students and solidarity (alternative ways of organizing, student unions, coalition building among temporary migrant workers, etc.) Everyday Economies of Housing and Labour -Housing affordability, adequacy and security for international students -Home-making, waiting, settling, and social reproduction -Workplace/hour restrictions, labour precarity, informality, and exploitation -Exclusionary and discriminatory experiences in markets -Countertactics and strategies dealing with exclusion, discrimination, and marginalization Everyday Economies of Higher Education and Educational Migration -The 'value' of international education for student migrants (more than credentials and degrees) -The 'cost' of caps, limits, bans, extensions and confusing bureaucracies -Lifecourses and trajectories: borrowed mobilities, liminal presents and bonded futures We are seeking papers on these and related topics from a variety of geographical contexts and epistemological perspectives. We welcome submissions from students, early career scholars and those in established posts. We especially encourage contributions from under-represented groups, people working in the Global South or who have lived experiences of listed themes and topics. We also encourage participation from those who are not able to attend in person and welcome audiovisual presentations in addition to oral-delivered papers. Please indicate your preference when submitting your proposal. Please send paper abstracts (max 250 words), including the title of the proposed contribution, name of author(s), and contact information to Alkim Karaagac (eakar...@uwaterloo.ca<mailto:eakar...@uwaterloo.ca>), Yolande Pottie-Sherman (ypottiesh...@mun.ca<mailto:ypottiesh...@mun.ca>) and Nancy Worth (nwo...@uwaterloo.ca<mailto:nwo...@uwaterloo.ca>) by Monday 19, February. Bibliography: Beech, S. E. (2019). The geographies of international student mobility: Spaces, places and decision-making. Springer. Finn, K., & Holton, M. (2019). Everyday mobile belonging: Theorising higher education student mobilities. Bloomsbury Publishing. Institute of International Education (2022). Global Mobility Trends. Project Atlas, 2022 Release. Madge, C., Raghuram, P., & Noxolo, P. (2009). Engaged pedagogy and responsibility: A postcolonial analysis of international students. Geoforum, 40(1), 34-45. Raghuram, P., Breines, M. R., & Gunter, A. (2020). Beyond# FeesMustFall: International students, fees and everyday agency in the era of decolonisation. Geoforum, 109, 95-105. Waters, J., & Brooks, R. (2021). Student migrants and contemporary educational mobilities. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Yarker, S. (2017). Everyday economic geographies. Geography Compass, 11(8), e12324.
