Capstone: Questioning Racism and Violence: The Case of Indian Student-Migrants in Australia

Over the last decade the number of Indian students coming to Australia for higher education achieved both spectacular growth and considerable decline. In 2004, there were little over 20,000 Indian students enrolled in Australian universities and colleges, by 2009 this number had reached over a 120,000. It is clear that until the year 2009 much of the growth in Indian student enrolment numbers was, to a large extent, the product of the relatively easy route the country offered towards permanent residency after graduation; as evidenced by the fact that in recent years 66% of all Indian students obtained permanent residency (PR) after studying in Australia. The year 2009 marks an important turning point in the presence of Indian student-migrants in Australia. Besides an expensive Australian dollar two reasons for this stand out. First, the collapse of a number of education providers, principally catering to Indian students and known as so-called ‘PR factories’ signaled in that there was something seriously wrong with the industry itself. While this received considerable media attention in both India and Australia it was nothing compared to the violent and often racially motivated attacks on Indian students of 2009. Making use of an analysis of over a thousand media reports and drawing upon ethnographic material this seminar will discuss the way the debate about the ‘questionable’ racist character of the attacks unfolded in Australia. While the attacks itself were condemned not only was the racist character of it put in doubt by the media, space was also created for the possibility that students had themselves to blame for what had happened. This seminar will specifically engage with the question how the discourse on Indian students in Australia could have developed in this way.