2026/01/01 by Aditya Gupta, Lokesh Vyas · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #African cultural and philosophical studies #Anxiety #Denial #Geopolitics #Higher Education Governance and Development #International Student and Expatriate Challenges #Power (physics) #Vulnerability (computing)
paper · doi:10.2139/ssrn.6428003
crossref issued 2026/01/01 · crossref published 2026/01/01 · openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · crossref created 2026/04/06 · crossref deposited 2026/04/06 · crossref indexed 2026/04/06 · openalex created_date 2026/04/07 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Written against the backdrop of repeated visa denials and delays that have profoundly shaped the authors' academic journeys, this essay offers a duo-ethnographic account of the anxieties surrounding scholarly mobility. Focusing on scholars from the Global South, it examines how new opportunities abroad require navigating visa processes-bureaucratic encounters laden with uncertainty, power asymmetries, and the risk of denial or delay. Through a thick description of these experiences, we demonstrate how academic aspirations intersect with geopolitical hierarchies embedded in our travel documents, and how scholars make choices within, and sometimes against, these constraints. The essay foregrounds the lived realities of visa-induced academic precarity, highlighting structural vulnerabilities that continue to shape participation in global knowledge production.