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From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity

  • Ladan Rahbari(editor)
  • Olga Burlyuk(editor)
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TitleFrom the Margins
SubtitleMigrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity
ContributorLadan Rahbari(editor)
Olga Burlyuk(editor)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0508
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0508
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightLadan Rahbari; Olga Burlyuk. Copyright of individual chapters are maintained by the chapter author(s).
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Publication placeCambridge, UK
Published on2026-04-29
Book set
This book is part of a 2-volume set. The other volume in the set is:
  • Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe
ISBN978-1-80511-786-5 (Paperback)
978-1-80511-787-2 (Hardback)
978-1-80511-788-9 (PDF)
978-1-80511-790-2 (HTML)
978-1-80511-789-6 (EPUB)
Long abstract

From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity is the much-anticipated second volume following Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe published in 2023, and available at https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0331. This new collection deepens and expands the conversation on the lived experiences of migrant academics navigating global academia.

Maintaining the autoethnographic and narrative approach of the first volume, From the Margins brings together diverse voices that challenge the Eurocentric framing of academic mobility by extending the focus beyond Europe to contexts such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and the Middle East. Through deeply personal, creative, and reflexive narratives, the contributors delve deep into the notions of privilege, migration, and precarity, revealing how academic hierarchies and colonial legacies shape everyday experiences of belonging, vulnerability, and resilience.

Bridging scholarship and storytelling, this volume offers an intellectually rich and emotionally resonant exploration of academia’s margins, inviting readers to rethink what knowledge, care, and solidarity mean within and beyond institutional borders. This volume appeals to scholars and students across migration, sociology, postcolonial, gender, race, and border studies, as well as to university leaders and diversity officers. Its interdisciplinary and creative format—including poetry and prose—makes it both accessible and engaging for academic and general audiences alike.

Print length322 pages (VI+322+nulla)
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Dimensions156 x 17.01 x 234 mm | 6.14" x 0.67" x 9.21" (Paperback)
156 x 19.05 x 234 mm | 6.14" x 0.75" x 9.21" (Hardback)
Weight457g | 16.11oz (Paperback)
631g | 22.27oz (Hardback)
THEMA
  • JBFH
  • JHB
  • JHBA
  • JN
  • JBFA
BISAC
  • SOC007000
  • SOC026000
  • SOC026040
  • SOC008000
  • EDU015000
Keywords
  • migrant academics
  • academic precarity
  • academic mobility
  • autoethnography
  • postcolonial academia
  • global higher education
Contents

Introduction Migrant Academics Narrating Their Precarity: The Exhausting, the Imperative, and the Joyful

  • Ladan Rahbari
  • Olga Burlyuk

Tango Partners A Migrant Academic’s Fusion of Privilege and Precarity

  • Diana Zacca Thomaz

The Power of Small Talk Catching up with the Academic World of International Law

  • José Gustavo Prieto Muñoz

Mallam’s Passport A Poetic Reflection of an Intra-African Academic Migrant

  • Babátúndé Fágbàyíbọ́

Moving through Power

  • Tereza Hendl

From Denial to Shaming Resentment and Other Stories on Being Critical, Muslim, Person of Colour in Global Academia

  • Ahmed Abozaid

Despotic Devices Yet Another Form

  • Anonymous

Navigating American Academia Amidst Global Unrest, Or Why We Should Complain More

  • Aizada Arystanbek

My Disappointing Life

  • Aida A. Hozić

Trauma, Ancestry, and Friendship During Graduate Education and Their Aftermaths

  • Julio César Díaz Calderón

Four Seasons of being a Migrant Academic

  • Xin Pan

Nami ni noru 波に乗る (riding the waves) My Journey as a Migrant Academic

  • Nur Daut

Lost and Found On being an Average Immigrant Academic

  • Ila Nagar

Resilience in Uncertainties Embracing and Celebrating Black Joy

  • Amisah Bakuri

A Happy Migrant in Unhappy Times

  • Reda Mahajar

In It Differently, Together Working through Precarity as a Migrant Supervisor and International Doctoral Student

  • James Burford
  • Fatima Alhaj Hasan

Canada Land of Opportunities for Researchers, But Which Ones?

  • Farinaz Basmechi

G’day Mate! I’m Franka Vaughan, innit? A Mobile Academic’s Tales of Visa Woes and Other Misadventures

  • Franka Vaughan

Who gets to have a child in grad school? Financial Precarity of the Migrant Single Mother

  • Shilpa Reddy

One in Four Recollections of Years of Infertility and Academic Precarity

  • Anonyma

A Train to Vienna Temporary Contracts, International Mobility and Academic Life in Austria

  • Julia Mourão Permoser

From Invalidation to Precarity A Story of an Upgrade

  • Nadine Hassouneh

Afterword Fractal Whiteness in a Violent World

  • Victoria Reyes
Locations
Landing PageFull text URLPlatform
Paperbackhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0508Landing pagehttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0508.pdfFull text URLPublisher Website
Hardbackhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0508Landing pagePublisher Website
PDFhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0508Landing pagehttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0508.pdfFull text URLTHOTH
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/112801Landing pagehttps://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/112801/9160751a-5185-4a75-ad73-bb3263fef830.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=yFull text URLOAPEN
https://thoth-arch.lib.cam.ac.uk/handle/1811/958Landing pagehttps://thoth-arch.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/e8fe232d-37fe-4142-9479-0069ef32ca79/downloadFull text URL
https://hdl.handle.net/2134/32197098Landing pagehttps://repository.lboro.ac.uk/ndownloader/files/64320138Full text URL
https://archive.org/details/9160751a-5185-4a75-ad73-bb3263fef830Landing pagehttps://archive.org/download/9160751a-5185-4a75-ad73-bb3263fef830/9160751a-5185-4a75-ad73-bb3263fef830.pdfFull text URLINTERNET ARCHIVE
https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0508Landing pagehttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0508.pdfFull text URLPublisher Website
https://zenodo.org/records/20063708Landing pagehttps://zenodo.org/records/20063708/files/9160751a-5185-4a75-ad73-bb3263fef830_book.pdfFull text URLZENODO
HTMLhttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0508/Landing pagehttp://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0508/Full text URLPublisher Website
EPUBhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0508Landing pagehttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0508.epubFull text URLTHOTH
Contributors

Ladan Rahbari

(editor)
Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at University of Amsterdam
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3840-708X

Ladan Rahbari (PhD Mult.) is a political sociologist and writer, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and a senior researcher at the International Migration Institute (IMI). She was formerly based at Ghent University, Belgium, as the recipient of an FWO postdoctoral fellowship (granted by the Research Foundation Flanders) (2019–2022). She is a member of the Amsterdam Young Academy (2021–2026). Rahbari is co-director and a board member of the Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS) and a member of the board of the Amsterdam Research Centre for Migration (ARC-M). Her research interests include gender politics, migration, the body, and decoloniality, with a focus on Iran and Western Europe, within the frameworks of postcolonial, feminist, and critical theories. Between September 2019 and September 2020, Rahbari served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies (DiGeSt), where she is currently a board member. In 2025, she published her first novel, Exilium.

Olga Burlyuk

(editor)
Associate Professor of Europe's external relations at the Department of Political Science at University of Amsterdam
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7477-1655

Olga Burlyuk (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Europe's external relations at the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Olga conducts research at the intersection of international relations, European politics, gender studies, migration studies and cultural policy studies, and employs critical theories and interpretive methods in social sciences. Olga has co-edited several publications, including The responsibility to remain silent? On the politics of knowledge production, expertise and (self-)reflection in Russia’s war against Ukraine (JIRD, 2023), Migrant academics’ narratives of precarity and resilience in Europe (OBP, 2023), Unintended consequences of EU external action (Routledge, 2020), and Civil society in post-Euromaidan Ukraine (CUP, 2019). Olga is affiliate at the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES), Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS), Amsterdam Research Centre for Migration (ARC-M) and Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS). She holds a PhD in International Relations (University of Kent, UK) and Master’s in Law (Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine) and European Studies (University of Maastricht, the Netherlands).

UK registered social enterprise and Community Interest Company (CIC).

Company registration 14549556

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