The social practice of international education: analysing the caring practices of Indian international students in Australian universities

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to debates about international student mobility and the globalisation of higher education by attending to the caring practices of Indian international students at Australian universities. Drawing on qualitative material produced with postgraduate students, it examines the practical, economic, emotional and social ways they support each other throughout their educational sojourns. The main argument is that Indian international students develop critical modes of supporting each other that make international study possible. These caring practices highlight the need to move beyond approaches that cast international students as neoliberal subjects or as a vulnerable group in need of intervention. They also unsettle the tendency to cast the higher educational landscape as strictly neoliberal. They highlight instead the importance of notions such as mutuality and reciprocity among the international student cohort, at the same time as they suggest the production of logics in higher education that cannot strictly be defined as neoliberal.

KEYWORDS:

• International education
• caring practices
• international student mobility
• higher education
• Indian students
• Australia

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Fazal Rizvi for mentorship and guidance during the preparation of this manuscript, and the two anonymous reviewers whose comments led to significant changes and improvements. This article would not have been possibility without the generosity of participants who took part in the research. Any faults that remain throughout are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Department of Education, Skills and Employment.