3 - The Fluidity of Return: Indian Student Migrants’ Transnational Ambitions and the Meaning of Australian Permanent Residency

Summary

Summary

This chapter explores the fluidity and intrinsic ambivalence of ‘migration decisions’ and connected (transnational) ambitions. It does so specifically by examining the category of student migrant: international students who, after they have finished their studies, ‘stay on’ and become permanent residents in the country where they have completed their studies. In the past, international students were almost always assumed to return, their failure to do so being associated with the brain drain and related issues. More recently, however, countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand have started recruiting their skilled migrants directly from the pool of freshly graduated international students. In particular Indian students in Australia have been known to apply for permanent residency (PR) after graduation, and some would argue that the opportunity to do so has even overwhelmingly determined the growth in Indian students’ enrolments in Australian universities in the last decade. While this supposes a certain straightforwardness with regards to the trajectory from student to migrant, this chapter lays bare the ambivalences and imaginations that zigzag in and out of student migrants narratives with regards to return and the permanency of their decisions. It will argue that the ‘permanency’ a PR provides actually makes it possible to consider one's settlement in Australia ‘temporary.’ Return takes on a double meaning here; a PR makes returning home (to India) possible yet also allows for the freedom to leave India and return to Australia, as a result facilitating transnational mobility.

Introduction

The connection between international education and migration has a long history but has only recently become the object of serious investigation. Up till the 1980s international students were mostly recruited through scholarship programs – such as the Colombo plan – with specific development goals in mind (Fraser 1984; Morris 1968; Rao 1979; Singh 1963; Tanenhaus & Roth 1962). This idea was often laced with a certain naivety: students would ‘learn’ and then ‘return home’ where they were assumed to make a valuable contribution towards developing their respective countries. They were understood to be future ambassadors for the Western world bringing the progressive message of democracy, liberal values and capitalism and as a result countering the spread of communism.