Cirrus@Austlit

'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 auto-graphic 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,' (Publication abstract)