THE MULTIDIMENSIONALITY OF EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES OF INTERNATIONALISATION USING COLLABORATIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY (CAE): NARRATIVES OF BELONGING AND CROSSING BORDERS OF TWO FEMALE SOCIOLOGISTS

: This paper elucidates approaches to collaborative autoethnography (CAE) drawing on two female academics’ experiences, who live in Ireland. As Ellis et al., (2011) state, autoethnography ‘seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experience to understand cultural experience’. We as two female sociologists, retrospectively and selectively analyse experiences with international academic life; borders, cultural norms, and identity. We refer to belonging to explore academic mobility within the contexts of our lives. We explore relationships between enabling/constraining factors contributing to our engagement with knowledge production and belonging to new academic environments outside our places of origin. Tanja’s account documents her doctoral journey from Slovenia to Ireland, learning the host country’s cultural fabrics to engage with academia, leaving and coming home, which did not mean returning to ‘the known’. Lisa’s narrative displays synergies to Tanja’s illuminating emotions upon entering the UK in 2017, when anti-immigrant sentiment was heightened. However, her experiences of returning during COVID-19 disrupted her imaginaries of coming home. Written in a conversational style, we explore commonalities/differences in experiences of international academic careers. This paper illuminates CAE for opening conceptual avenues into multi-layered dimensions of academics’ experiences, illuminating its significance for international Higher Education policy-making.


INTRODUCTION
This paper critically engages with the concept of internationalisation engrained in European Union (EU), Irish and Slovenian higher educational (HE) policies, illuminating consonance and dissonance between policy-based imaginaries and lived experiences.Drawing upon an analytic lens of Collaborative Autoethnography (CAE) the paper details pivotal life episodes drawn from ethnographic diaries of two female sociologists living and working in Ireland; one an Irish national, the other from Slovenia, illustrating that academic mobility as a lived experience is far more complex than typically construed in policies and governance arenas (Moran et al., 2021).In both countries, crossing borders to seek better employment and educational opportunities is portrayed as a social and personal good, yet narratives of mobility and internationalisation that predominate in both countries are mediated by complex social and political histories linked to wider discourses about identity, modernisation and the past.In this paper, we discuss the meanings of internationalisation as constituted through personal experiences situated within wider socio-political, cultural, economic and historical contingencies.
While multiple definitions of internationalisation prevail in policy, society and academia (De Wit et al., 2015), with attempts made to re-orientate internationalisation towards more ethical and humanistic understandings (Tran et al., 2023), internationalisation and international student experiences are regularly reduced to institutional metrics (KPIs), overseas 'recruitment' and international student/staff members' satisfaction with university support services, for example.While this overly reductionist logic is widely attributed to neo-liberal 'creep' , the infiltration of corporatist, marketized education systems which create largely 'uncaring' institutions (Lynch, 2010), the complexity of internationalisation, as analysed through an 'everyday' perspective with overseas staff and students, is not fully known (Moran et al., 2021).Comparably, definitions of internationalisation espoused by national governments, recruitment agencies and the EU operationalise corporatist understandings of internationalisation in recruitment campaigns, which are largely divorced from student and staff members' own conceptualisations/experiences (Ibid).This paper addresses this gap, going deep into selected everyday life episodes, analysed retrospectively in 2023, which we now see as transformative to our own understandings of internationalisation. Significantly, our experiences both challenge and affirm some predominant narratives of internationalisation, illuminating the multidimensional character of internationalisation and its labyrinthine meanings in different social settings and contexts that are mediated by (interconnecting) institutional/personal histories.We critically engage with internationalisation through daily practices connected to home and belonging.We present gendered experiences with internationalisation in HE which brings to the fore hopes for better opportunities and disillusions about meritocratic dreams of EU higher education structures.

NEO-LIBERALISM, CORPORATIST LOGICS AND INTERNATIONALISATION IN SLOVENIA AND IRELAND
The recent history of internationalisation in HE has evidenced changes due to increased globalisation supported by initiatives and policies created on the broader EU level (Dagen and Kovačević, 2023).One of the most influential policies, the Bologna Process, rendered internationalisation as a top agenda to the EU third and fourth level sectors, and it is supported through a number of mobility programmes initiated and financed by the European Commission.Strategies such as the Bucharest long-term strategy Mobility for Better Learning, and the European Commission's strategy European Higher Education in the World were initiated to promote the international mobility of staff and students (Hauptman Komotar, 2019).However, as part of responses to broader globalisation processes, current understandings of internationalisation revolve around neoliberal policies, promoting ideas of self-financed and customer-driven approaches to universities (Wimpenny et al., 2022).
While neo-liberalism pervades contemporary internationalisation discourses especially in Western societies, discussions of internationalisation also vary markedly both in and across countries (Teicher, 2017).In Western Europe, academic mobility is largely seen as a central thrust of internationalisation efforts, essential to perpetuating new knowledge and novel collaborations.It is one component of internationalisation but not the sum of the whole.While internationalisation is usually theorised as a macro concept, the everyday micro-level interactions that characterise the lived experiences of internationalisation however, remain under-researched and are largely hidden.Our experiences though linked to mobility more fully reflect the various tentacles of internationalisation as per the literature by engaging with student/staff recruitment, power, and what it means to 'be international' as opposed to mobility solely.In doing so, our 'bottom up' approach engages with the meaning of everyday social dynamics and relationships through our unique biographical trajectories, which is essential for policy alignment and improved effectiveness of university/governmental internationalisation efforts in terms of wellbeing and quality of life.
New managerialism as a strategy promoting market values and practices in education have been promoted in the Irish HE since the early 2000s resulting in growing precarity and developing carelessness as an academic norm (Ivancheva, Lynch and Keating, 2019).The principal policy instrument (Department of Education and Science, 2016) Irish Educated, Globally Connected, which frame internationalisation agendas couch it entirely within commodification and otherness.Here, internationalisation is explicitly linked to entrepreneurship, revenue generation and profit making, explicitly referring to 'developing nations' (Moran et al., 2021).Furthermore, on its website, the Higher Education Authority (HEA), the body with direct responsibility for quality assurance in Irish HEIs states that internationalisation 'represents an investment in future global relationships' which builds 'relationships with our future trading partners' (HEA, 2023).Furthermore, the Irish Universities Association (IUA) adopts cultural adaptation and assimilatory language stating that helping students to 'adapt' is what 'Irish universities do best' (IUA, 2023).Comparably, Education in Ireland, a subsidiary body of Enterprise Ireland (EI) which attracts international students to Ireland utilises dual (conflicting) narratives of Irish identity and culture in the name of student recruitment.On the one hand, Irish education is projected as progressive and innovative, providing students with ample corporate and technological opportunities and access to a jobs market that is envied the world over (Education in Ireland, 2023).Simultaneously, it also promotes notions of Ireland linked to an overtly romanticised past; as an isle veiled in Celtic mists, characterised by ancient landscapes and 'pastness' (see Moran, 2008).In this way, discourses of internationalisation embody 'catch all' (yet contradictory) messages; they are oriented to an imagined past and technocratic, corporatist images of the future.
A peripheral policy approach to internationalisation and mobility in HE has been discussed in connection to Slovenia for which a lack of evidence-based policy about HE internationalisation strategies is recognised (Flander et al., 2022, p. 314).HE institutions belonging to peripheral countries 'require more effort and deliberate strategies to internationalise' (Uzhegova and Baik, 2022, p. XX).Since its independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991, the country gradually reformed HE by, for instance, introducing amendments to the Higher Education Act (1999) by clarifying issues around autonomy, funding, admissions, and internationalisation of the system by adapting the Bologna declaration (Hauptman Komotar, 2019).The country began to participate more significantly in various transnational activities, such as the TEMPUS programme, the Central European Exchange Programme (CEEPUS), and regional exchange Central and South-Eastern European Erasmus programme (Hauptman Komotar, 2019, p. 875).Based on information provided by UNESCO Student Mobility statistics, 4% of the total tertiary student population (n=3,082) in Slovenia studied abroad in 2018.HE institutions actively promote studying and living abroad and also attract immigration.For example, Study in Slovenia, linked to Erasmus+, utilises emotional and sensory language as recruitment strategies utilising slogans like 'I Feel Slovenia' and 'I Love Slovenia', focusing on the country's stunning beauty and access to adventure sports as promotional tools.In addition, the quality of the education system, travel opportunities and the enticement of 'an ideal student life' convey opportunities for adventure, cultural immersion and gaining new social networks.While there are clear differences in promotional tools utilised in Slovenia and Ireland, they overlap on commercial orientations and promote neo-liberal values (Dolenec, 2017).

CONCEPTUALISING INTERNATIONALISATION THROUGH THE LENS OF EVERYDAY LIFE: KNOWLEDGE, NARRATIVE AND BIOGRAPHICAL TRAJECTORIES
Broadly speaking, extant research literature on internationalisation can be categorised as studies on internationalisation in HE curricula, benefits of internationalisation for student learning and knowledge-exchange, statistical examinations of global trends in academic mobility, policy analyses and academics' experiences of crossing borders and studying and/ or working in different countries.This latter strand is less developed in comparison to the other research areas; however, it has increased in prominence over the last decade (Moran et al., 2021).While extant work reveals significant challenges that are often encountered pertaining to language barriers, difficulties 'fitting in' and making friends, conceptual frames that are applied are frequently limited (e.g.'culture shock'), envisioning internationalisation as a linear process that leads to cultural integration and assimilation whilst also negating their agency (Coate and Rathnayake, 2012;O'Reilly et al., 2013).While biographic narrative research on international mobility has increased (Nada & Araújo, 2018;Birindelli, 2023) revealing the importance of hearing academics' stories in their own words (Ibid), in Ireland and Slovenia, such studies which 'go deep' into people's everyday experiences are largely negated from contemporary HE research agendas (Moran et al., 2021).
Studies which focus on 'culture shock' , assimilation and integration also reflect normative conceptualisations of non-Western cultures, purporting that they should be cast aside in favour of Western mores and folkways, re-entrenching power hierarchies, East/ West binaries and otherness (Sidhu, 2006;Moran et al., 2021).The 'ideal' international academic is therefore constructed as crossing borders not only to seek better educational and employment opportunities but to acquire new cultural identities and more 'advanced' Western knowledge.In turn, this justifies dehumanising and metrified rhetoric which frequently appears in policies and society that fundamentally reduces international students/ staff members to institutional performance targets and homogenises their experiences (Marginson, 2012).In addition, the notion of what it means to be 'international' and distinctions between so-called 'international' and 'home' students and staff have rarely been questioned (King and Raghuram, 2012).Biographical research oriented towards processes of identity reconstruction and the fluidity and nuanced dimensions of internationalisation itself, go beyond these static 'East/West' dichotomies, blurring boundaries between notions of 'home' students and staff and so-called 'internationals' or foreigners (Moran et al., 2021).
In Ireland and Slovenia, extant qualitative work on international student/staff mobility is limited but increasing (Svetlik and Lalić;Khoo, 2012;Finn and Darmody, 2017;Idris, Ion and Seery, 2019).For example, O'Reilly et al., (2013) reported significant challenges with accommodation, language and cultural barriers among international students in Ireland, which culminated in anxiety and depression (Dunne, 2009).O'Connor (2020) argues that international students occupy dual discursive positions in Irish universities.On the one hand, they are regularly portrayed as the 'brightest and best' whilst also framed as key sources of social and economic capital.Coate and Rathnayake (2012) provide rich personal insights into the complexity of academics' decision to move and live abroad, subsequently revealing how notions of otherness, racism and labelling adversely affect university services and attitudes of civil society actors (e.g.doctors, police) towards international students/staff.Qualitative research with 16 international students in Northern Ireland (Cena et al., 2021) documents the multidimensional challenges faced by international students; pertaining to relationships and language.For example, students reported feeling left out of peer groups due to their accents, lack of belonging, and that they felt unwelcome.This extant work largely corroborates existing studies in Europe and globally which document comparable findings regarding lack of social support (Liu, 2009) and difficulties adapting to new academic cultures (Constantine et al., 2004).
Contemporary biographic work on academic mobility highlights the nuanced, layered nature of international academics' experiences illuminating the importance of transcending static categorisations (e.g.good/bad, positive/negative) to characterise their lives, highlighting that their experiences of travelling and living abroad are multidimensional (Nada and Araujo, 2018).Clearly, this challenges the theoretical perspective oriented to integration and assimilation and overly linear understandings of international students' experiences.Zhang's (2014) biographic study of Chinese international students in New Zealand also reveals the importance of family histories in guiding life decisions about where and what to study.Interviewees' unique biographical trajectories were replete with notions of honouring one's ancestors particularly among middle class respondents.This further shows the significance of individual and collective histories and patterns of sociability in families/communities to understanding internationalisation experiences.
Emotions, social conventions, communication patterns, home-ing and belonging have been extensively discussed in extent research on academic mobility and internationalisation. Like other types of migration, mixed and contrasting feelings, including guilt, ambition, hope, affection and disaffection, constitute an essential part of international academics' everyday lives (Boccagni & Baldassar, 2015, p. 73).As stated by Boccagni and Baldassar (2015), emotions are 'on the move' when people leave home.Transnational migration proves to be a fruitful field for studying emotions by, considering the role of social interactions in the new socio-cultural context or memories in shaping an individual's emotions.For example, female foreign academics based in the UK reported that their responses to social situations did not correspond with the norms and social expectations of the new context (Strauβ & Boncori, 2020).The communicative practices they learned in their country of origin were not always perceived positively, while their sense of humour and jokes did not translate in the new context (p.1009).Challenges arising from international professionals and students (lack of) adjustment to a foreign context have been acknowledged, indicating that comparatively to domestic staff and students, international counterparts might experience greater levels of homesickness, mental health issues, issues to do with performance and productivity and lack of confidence (Andrade in Poteet and Gomez, 2015, p. 84;Strauβ, Boncori, 2020).In the case study based in Canada, Poteet and Gomez (2015) show how international university students remain detached from communities and negotiate their sense of belonging through a transnational process by mainly forming friendships with other international students.This further underlines the complexity of belonging and home-ing amongst overseas students/staff.

RECONCEPTUALISING INTERNATIONALISATION THROUGH COLLABORATIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY (CAE): CREATIVITY, INVENTIVENESS AND LIVED EXPERIENCES
Autoethnography is one of the youngest and still developing approaches to qualitative research.The method has developed as a response to the research of other cultures and turned to the study of ourselves (Hayano, 1979).It both emerges from and challenges ethnography replacing interest in others with people's own culture.This 'cultural turn' in anthropology (for more, see Clifford and Marcus, 1986) has had a significant impact on other disciplines and social theory in general.Today it is often linked to feminist epistemologies (e.g.Haraway, 1988), postcolonial theories (e.g.Spivak, 1999), and also sociology of illness (e.g.Frank, 2004) (Dumitrica, 2010).Our understanding of autoethnography has been hugely influenced by the sociological lens, as developed by Ellis and Bochner (Ellis & Bochner, 2006), who conceptualised autoethnography within the context of symbolic interactionism.
Autoethnography is 'an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experience in order to understand cultural experience' (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011).Reed-Danahay (1997) claims the method promotes a genre in which researcher draws from their own living experiences and connects them with a broader sociocultural context.Research is embedded into a researcher's living life from which is not possible to separate who you are from what you do (Muncey, 2010).Definitions of autoethnography combine elements of autobiography and ethnography to seek to analyse personal experience (auto) to understand (graphy) cultural experience (ethno) (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011;Ellis, 2004;Eichsteller & Davis, 2022).Autobiographical aspects refer to retrospective and selective writings about past experiences, so-called 'epiphanies' which are remembered moments and events after which 'life does not seem quite the same' (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011, p. 3).As argued by Horsdal (2012) and Moran and Sidiropulu-Janků (2024, in press), autoethnography has the potential to generate deep narrations of everyday encounters by enabling researchers to reframe daily life events in connection to their past, present, and future.The main narrator is the researcher who uses the approach to reflect on personal experiences by positively embracing subjectivity and emotions (Eichsteller and Davis, 2022, p. 152).There is broad agreement that autoethnography is much more than a method (Bochner & Ellis, 2016a); it constitutes a way of being where 'self and other(s) interact, relate and dance together' through interlinking processes of writing, thinking, sharing and remembering (Anderson & Glass-Coffin, 2013, p. 57;Moran and Sidiropulu-Janků, 2024, in press).
Collaborative autoethnography (CAE) is a type of autoethnographic interrogation in which researchers may explore the self in the presence of others to gain a collective understanding of their shared topic of interest (Chang, 2008).A few researchers are situated in a certain sociocultural milieu and interact dialogically (Chang et al., 2013;Hager and Peyrefitte, 2021).CAE is a) self-focused as it emphasises researchers' views and experiences, b) researcher-visible by exposing researchers' inner thoughts, c) context-conscious by being situated within a sociocultural context, and d) critically dialogic by allowing researchers to create meanings and constructing values (Zou et al., 2022, p. 338).In comparison with autoethnography, CAE considers voice as a process, while addressing issues connected to multi-voicedness, mutuality, and collective engagement (Moran and Sidiropulu-Janků, 2024, in press).The approach allows researchers to shift from individual to collective agency 'whilst offering a path towards personally engaging research that makes a difference' (Lapadat, 2017, p. 589).Collective space of recounting, analysing and interpreting memories together 'tap into broader social and cultural patterns, forces and power relations that contribute to shaping subjectivities (Hager and Peyrefitte, 2021, p. 4).CAE is a research approach 'involving a team of people adopting an iterative, reflective process which necessarily includes data analysis' (Anderson et al., 2020, p. 396).In this collaborative endeavour, researchers can apply different models of cooperation and work together in different ways.One of the approaches suggested by Chang (2008) is to develop a written reflective practice in which one autoethnographer writes about their experience and passes their writing to the next person.Some researchers combine collaboration with individual work (Anderson et al., 2020), while others follow a clear research framework (Adamson & Muller, 2018).

Crossing Borders through CAE: Everyday Experiences of Internationalisation
Our collaboration was based on developing spontaneously engagement tools used in the process.We have been friends and colleagues since 2013, working together on projects pertaining to home and belonging, voice in biographical research and innovations in narrative inquiry.We wanted to use our friendship as a prism to guide the singular process of creating (and subsequently, the joint analysis and interpretations of) diaries, where we crystallised the meanings of our experiences.We initially used a 'free writing' approach to tease out the common areas of concern connected to our experiences with internationalisation. Afterwards, we recognised themes, such as 'leaving home' , 'belonging and adaptation' , 'cultural particularities' and 'gender roles' as connectors and an opportunity to comment on each other's writing.Throughout the process, we used online platforms and phones to further our collaboration.The complexities of everyday life in Irish academia in our gendered roles of post-doctoral researcher and Dean of Graduate Studies served as common reflective points directing us to become more critical about the concept of internationalisation and HE, by reflecting on the 'dark side' of this overused (and abused) term, critiquing overreliance on metrics and its emotional consequences, female experiences in global academia (Moran and Sidiropulu-Janků, 2024, in press), and calls to decolonise the curriculum (Arday et al., 2021).Following some other CAE practices (Hager and Peyrefitte, 2021), we acknowledged the importance of adopting a collective stance against the individualised nature of neoliberally internationalised academia.Along with Anderson et al. (2020), we recognise that separating personal from professional is no longer useful in our academic life and 'we need to be aware of our own values and beliefs and where they might be challenged by alternative ones, if we are to function effectively in our complex, multi-layered environments' (p.395).
The challenges of CAE are both epistemological and practical considering issues around possibilities of writing and understanding ourselves in collaboration with other (Chang, 2016).Other pertaining ethical matters include issues about trust and disclosing personal topics to another researcher, respect when stories are not fully revealed (personal boundaries), and how to work with silences and memorised shared experiences.As acknowledged in Moran and Sidiropulu-Janků (2024, in press), the risk of misinterpreting trusting relationships between researchers with 'faking friendship' (Duncombe & Jessop, 2002) is significant, since both professional and personal layers of our everyday relationships overlap in labyrinthine ways.We talked openly about what it means to collaborate, the risks of revealing 'too much' and how to write and express our experiences so that we felt safe to write, create and to share.We chose to express our experiences below, singularly, as individuals and yet in another way, as a cacophony of voices showing the complexity and melded nature of our experiences.The episodes given here are not meant to capture all aspects of our internationalisation experiences.Rather, they are pivotal moments, turning points that enabled us to reimagine our experiences as international scholars and as women.

Lisa's Voice
Episode 1 -'The Leaving' The sky was dark even though it was July 31 st .Lisa's dad said 'watch yourself now, like a good girl' as she got into the car.She is crying, though not as heavily as she was the day before.Her mother and her brother bring her to the airport.They are full of: 'it will be OK' , 'once the students get there, there will be purpose' and 'your cousins will help you out, even the ones you don't like will help you'.Incidentally, when the time comes, they don't help.
She is now standing in the line for the plane, still crying and alone.Putting her foot on the step she wonders 'how long will I be gone for?Right, there's no turning back.The Ryanair jingles.The air hostess with the blonde hair and sharp features.She's pure Liverpudlian.Lisa sits second row from the front on the edge.A woman sits quietly on the inside seat.A man approaches just as the door is closing with a metal suitcase.He pushes against Lisa then starts pushing the case in the hold.The smell of alcohol is almost intoxicating in itself.He almost walks over Lisa before she starts to shuffle and get up.After a few minutes in flight, she is crying again.
' Are you OK?' says the man.'I'm emigrating' she answers 'and going to a place called Ormskirk' .
The woman moves out in the seat.'Ormskirk' she says.'My daughter lived there but was killed in an accident.I'm going over for her inquest' .
'I'm sorry' says the man.'That's traumatic.They embark the plane in silence then at the bottom of the stairs the man says: 'I'm so sorry' and spreads his arms out.
The three strangers hug and Lisa knows that one day, she will write about this.

Episode 2 -'Hope and Glory'
Lisa's first review happens in November, three months after she starts work.Martin, her line manager, ushers her in.
'Lisa, how are you?' in a friendly, north London accent.'I'm fine and how are you?' Lisa is nervous.She thinks she is doing well but what if Martin doesn't think so? 'So how is the job going?' Martin asks.'Fine' she answers.'I' d say a lot more than fine, Lisa.You'll be a professor at the rate you're going.I have big plans for your career.Believe in yourself ' .
It has all been worth something.

Episode 3 -'Sickness'
Lisa is leaving home again.She doesn't understand the humour but she has started to enjoy her life, despite the pressure.Her relationship, which she thinks was her last real chance to get married, ended a few months before.Life has been tough but writing and working has kept her occupied.
'If anyone had said to me before I left that 18 months later, I would have been to Wetherspoons and enjoyed it, I would have thought 'Oh my God, what is going to happen to me there?'She laughs thinking 'why did I think that way?' Suddenly, she starts to feel ill.The life drains from her body.She cannot hear on her left ear.Her power on her left side leaves.She thinks 'thank God I don't have children as I would be leaving now'.
She understands that what is keeping her from God's grace is her obsession with work; that work has become a legal drug, a compulsion, something she thinks about 24/7.It doesn't matter that she is not married or that she doesn't have children.It doesn't matter that she and Mark are finished.Nothing matters.
She is admitted to hospital for a suspected mini stroke brought on by putting herself under extreme stress.The radiographer says no damage to the brain it seems, although for months after, she is tired and she cannot write.She worries she will never write again.One day she sits down at her laptop.The words flow again.They don't burst forth like they usually do but she writes.Then she writes the next day and then the next.
Episode 4 -'Peace and Upheaval' 'I have to be peaceful on the inside'.She moves into a beautiful apartment and these six months are the happiest of her life.She makes her own soup every day.She shops at Marks and Spencer.She forgets about Mark.She prays and socialises more with her Chinese neighbours.She is still an outsider but she no longer worries about it.She starts to look at houses thinking of getting a mortgage near work.
Then one day, there is a report of a flu outbreak in China which gets worse and worse.'My husband goes out in a space suit back in China just to get the groceries' says Li. 'Look Lisa -the numbers are growing'.The girls in the university café start to speculate that some of the rooms in the languages department have been converted to a hospital.
Lisa must travel home on March 11 th to see her consultant about her TIA.Mr Wright tells her 'you simply cannot go back, Lisa.You must stay here.It is too dangerous'.The night before she left the UK, she had a feeling deep inside that she would not see her apartment again.And while she misses it and thinks about it every day, she never has.

Episode 5 -'Leaving'
The World Cup final is on.Lisa is in a hotel in Killarney.It's England versus Italy.She checks her emails.Wow.She was not expecting this.An email from an Irish university, was offering her a job as Head of Department.While Lisa envisioned getting a letter like this for years, her emotions are not as she thought they would be.This is not relief.Instead, what she feels is sadness.She is sad to leave her best friends, the university, her colleagues, and her office.She said goodbye months before but this is now final.She will not be going back.She misses the cinema on the university campus the parents and students she met at Open Day.In short, she missed her English life; the life that she built in another country, in a new place, by herself.She misses Li and Kim and even her English neighbour Robert who she hardly ever saw and George who played the guitar and the cleaning ladies Jo and Helen.She wonders if this was her freedom and maybe she didn't cherish it but should have?'There will be more moments' she muses.'There is time yet for fun and freedom and even love' .

Tanja's Voice
An Interview: Slovenia, Spring 2009 I am at home sitting in my dad's office and waiting for the phone to ring.I am nervous as I do not know what to expect from this conversation.I sent the programme directors a letter expressing my interest and a vague Ph.D. proposal idea beforehand.I researched the Centre's research interest online and encountered some of the concepts of their interest, such as resilience, for the first time in my life.I included those buzzwords in my proposal to sound more convincing, but I had no clue what I was talking about.The words sounded distant, foreign, and non-translatable to me.After the interview, I feel content and shortly after the interview, I was informed that I got a fully funded post in the programme.I am over the moon, and I know that a bright future is ahead of me.I am ready to leave home again, and I nearly dismiss the sadness I caused to my mum.

Landing in Ireland, September 2009
Here I am in the new country which I visited only a couple of times before.My first day at the University is confusing.I don't know where to go or when to show up.Someone told me that nothing starts before 9 am in Ireland, so I decided to go searching for the Child and Family Research Centre and introduce myself.The Centre's administrator warmly welcomes me and gives me a task list which needs to be accomplished prior to starting with the study.She tells me that I need to find my own study desk, which is difficult as there are no desks available.After a couple of weeks, Tony finds me a desk in and tells me he can help me anytime.I feel relieved.There are things foreign to me in this new place.As much as I try, I do not understand some of the phrases people use, Irish humour sounds alien to me, and I just can't understand why they talk so much about freaking weather, and something called GAA.I feel I have nothing to say and I am out of my comfort zone!Beginning of the PhD journey Ireland, 2010 I wake up regularly in a panic asking myself if I am good enough to finish a Ph.D. Should I quit it, and what will I do if I do quit it?I feel terribly alone on this journey, and my thoughts do not always help me to keep going.I am not writing enough; in fact, I don't write at all.I am one of two non-English speakers enrolled on this programme, and I constantly feel insufficient.My English fails me on a daily basis, and even when I have something relevant to say, I remain silent as I cannot elaborate my thoughts and ideas fast enough.Quit or not to quit?
Fortunately, I met two gorgeous PhD students, Jessica and Ailbhe, who I can call close friends.I know that I can trust them.Together with my partner, they have become a key part of my family here.I regularly meet them for a chat, hug, outing or a glass of wine.It feels so good to laugh, to talk about the world and forget about my personal insufficiency.I also joined a Feminist Society at the University, which is another safe space I can go to.

Researching 'back home' Slovenia, 2011
My personal position as a PhD student, studying and living abroad, is challenged with the spatial movement 'back home' to do the fieldwork.I moved from Slovenia to Ireland two years ago and replaced my known world with an unknown one.The spatial movement has not only challenged my understanding of Slovenia but challenged my own position of belonging.Being somehow in between the spaces, trying to grasp the way things are done on the Emerald Island and compare them with practices at home, leave me confused and enriched at the same time.After leaving, I have simultaneously become an outsider at home and abroad.I do not entirely fit in any of the places.It seems that time is not on my side -I share my past experiences with people from home and the present tense abroad.I do not want to think about the future...Going back does not mean returning to known, as new experiences changed me and I am not the same.I have become an outsider in the place being once taken for granted (Alsop Kraft, 2002).
PhD Saga Ireland, 2013-2014 I have two PhD supervisors, and none of them is happy with my draft thesis.They told me that I still covered two unconnectable topics in it.I am struggling with understanding the relationship between an individual and a state; apparently, my old understanding, which I developed at home, is insufficient to explain the data.I am reluctant to look at new theories and concepts, I am getting more and more confused, and I don't know how to bring this thesis to an end.I meet with a colleague, Emma, telling her I cannot continue the process much longer.I am emotionally exhausted, and I have no energy to write or think at this point.Emma shares my feelings, so we start dreaming together about post-PhD life.We planned: We will meet up bi-weekly to read and comment on each other's work.By summer 2014, we are both ready for submission.There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Viva and Graduation Ireland, late 2014/early 2015
It is just before Christmas, and I am ready to defend my thesis.I book a massage a day before, and during the treatment, I somehow 'connect' with my external examiner.I am beyond nervous, but somehow, I know it will be all fine.The next day I have the most enjoyable and insightful conversation about my study.I master that buzzword resilience inside out, and I can engage in a conversation with top academics in a non-native language.I pass my viva with minor corrections, and I am awarded with a PhD.

'Distance travelled' Ireland, 2023
When I moved to 'the West' , I learned that I need to build a career or at least develop a career plan.Before the move, I was taught that all I need is a job.Today, I have a job in academia, but I do not have a career.I am one of the many post-doctoral researchers on precarious contracts who can only plan until tomorrow and at the same time, enjoy a great sense of flexibility.
Is academia my home now?Was it worth doing a PhD? Can I ever get rid of imposter syndrome?I feel like a pilgrim, someone who is all the time searching for her own place and space.I am both an insider and an outsider now.Sometimes I want to stay, and many times I want to leave.I love teaching and learning from students, but somehow, I cannot get to the lectureship position.I am less passionate about the precariousness of the work.I am still crossing so many physical and mental borders, and I feel as if my journey has not been finished yet.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Internationalisation is both a complex (and contested) concept; it is tentacled, multi-layered, experiential and lived (simultaneously).While much contemporary theory promotes predominantly linear understandings of internationalisation, which embody overly reductionist understandings of the term, data presented here and from other qualitative, biographical work illuminate that the meaning of the term from the perspective of people's 'lived lives' (Wengraf, 2001) is far more nuanced and layered.The fact that governments rely on neo-liberal informed assumptions and perspectives on internationalisation that are grounded in profit-making, KPIs and return-on-investment (ROI) (measured predominantly in economic terms) further enshrines dehumanised (and dehumanising) expectations of internationalisation and further divorces policies from everyday human realities.
As recognised by Ivancheva, Lynch, and Keating (2019), international mobility might serve as a temporary, but not a long-term solution for some female academics.Moving abroad does not come without a cost however in terms of isolation, loneliness and racism (Brown & Jones, 2013;O'Reilly et al., 2013), and often restricts many female academics' choices between family and career.On the other hand, those who opt out of the mobility option often remain trapped in precarious contract conditions.This resonates clearly with our stories reflecting on difficulties in obtaining meaningful and secure permanent positions in academia by being exposed to wider macro narratives of never being skilled enough.The underlying neo-liberal, commercialist dynamics means that the noble, socially good drivers of internationalisation including knowledge production, socialisation and cultural learning are reduced to mere country targets.On a conceptual level, this diluted version of internationalisation falls far short of achieving social good.
Our study, although small in scale, corroborates extant research on international student and staff members' experiences of anxiety, difficulties settling in, language and cultural learning (Stier, 2003;Szabo et al., 2017).It shows the importance of friendships and social support to offsetting many of the difficulties experienced by international scholars to achieve in their adopted homelands and are indicative of the lack of supports from universities and governments alike to prepare citizens to move for work or study, and experiences of dissonance in receiving countries.While most research focuses on the lack of supports in adopted universities (Arkoudis & Tran, 2010;Arthur, 2017), we contend that governments and universities in home countries also have responsibilities to university students and staff to prepare them for the realities of living abroad, which includes cultural loneliness and isolation.The day-to-day episodic character of our data goes deeper into the momentary experiences than other studies, including the highly emotive and sensory dimensions of internationalisation which are largely overlooked in research to date and in policy arenas in both countries which conceptualise and promote overly metrified understandings of the 'knowledge economy' (Coate & Rathnayake, 2012).Moreover, while much contemporary literature focuses on the impacts of internationalisation in relation to educational performance, our research goes deeper into the personal and professional impacts of internationalisation and the entanglements of both domains.It also shows the importance of retrospective accounts of internationalisation that happen years after moving home (Lisa) and also that the process of making sense of these experiences, placing them in the context of other subsequent life events is an ongoing process (Lisa and Tanja).While internationalisation is often understood as a distinct period in people's lives (Sam, 2001), our data projects that its resonance across our lives is deep and that the process of sensemaking goes on.This constitutes another way that contemporary policies are divorced from 'real lives' where internationalisation is construed as a one-off linear event, as opposed to its processual nature.By focusing our attention on students and academics, we do not want to imply that the affective challenges arising from mobility and displacement are inherently more intense or distinctive than those recounted in various narratives about the migration experiences of workers or refugees.Nevertheless, we contend that the realms of higher education (HE) and internationalisation warrant independent scrutiny as our personal auto-ethnographies highlight the oversight of the difficulties encountered by international students and academics amid the widely celebrated phenomenon of internationalisation.
For future research, we have several recommendations.Firstly, CAE is a worthwhile process for international scholars to reflect on their internationalisation experiences and also that more longitudinal research using CAE and other depth methodologies is significant for understanding people's lived lives in and across time (Nurse et al., 2023).Secondly, that governments and universities need to invest significant time and financial capital to prepare students and staff for living and studying abroad prior to departure and for more joined-up thinking between countries that is oriented to better standards of living and understanding 'real experiences' as opposed to market values.Thirdly, that target driven data currently relied upon by governments fall short of illuminating people's everyday experiences.It is interesting to note, for example, that in Ireland, the Higher Education Authority (HEA), the body responsible for policy implementation, prioritises its internationalisation strategy on its website without a single report into international student/staff members experiences given the same credence.CAE, along with other biographical methods like depth interviewing and ethnography offer great scope in this domain but policy-makers must open up to the potentialities of qualitative research, to the non-linear dimensions of everyday life.This requires a shift in 'practical consciousness' (Giddens, 1985) in both countries in terms of how internationalisation is framed to embrace humanised understandings of internationalisation as process and lived experience.
In short, CAE has been a valuable experience for us as researchers.It deepened our friendship, facilitated deeper knowledge of who we are, personal growth and enhanced our understanding of our struggles.It has also led us to recall moments of joy where we are surrounded by our adopted families in our adopted homelands, cognisant that who we are now cannot ever be the same as it was before we moved.Significantly, this joint process of sharing and creating has led us to new insights about our resilience as well; our individual strength to face and overcome multiple challenges in our personal and professional lives often simultaneously.Governments and policy planners need to take these challenges seriously and embrace new ways of understanding internationalisation that push beyond strictly neo-liberal principles into emotive, sensory and complex everyday experiences.Сажетак: У овом раду се појашњавају приступи колаборативној аутоетнографији (енгл.CAE) на основу искустава две универзитетске професорке које живе у Ирској.Како наводе Елис и сарадници (Ellis et al., 2011), аутоетнографија "покушава да опише и систематски анализира лично искуство како би се схватило културолошко искуство".Као две социолошкиње, ретроспективно и селективно анализирамо искуства у вези са међународним академским животом; границама, културним нормама и идентитетом.Разматрамо припадност да бисмо истражили академску мобилност у контекстима наших живота.
My nephew was killed lately.I was at his inquest.I know how bad it is' .
'It's my fault' says the woman.'I should have stopped her from going' .'It's not your fault' says Lisa 'sure you couldn't have stopped her' .Guilt, grief, regret, trauma, sadness, anger, anxiety, and tears.The flight ends but as they leave, the woman passes Lisa her address.'Do call me Lisa and let me know how you're doing' .