Walking the Doors—to Be to Become

Abstract

In the context of global diaspora and its mobilization via educationally enabled tertiary qualifications, the dynamics of a complex and hyphenated diasporic self, emerge out of an interplay where professional probabilities and eclectic cultural possibilities entangle to spin a complicated maze of doors. When diasporics with varying professional competencies and cultural backgrounds endeavor to become embedded in new settings, their everyday engagement with new contexts calls for both cultural and professional re-initiation. This dual re-initiation may occasion resettlement struggles for these in-transition individuals because some previously ascribed symbols of personal and professional selves enter an involute play. The translation of these struggles could form liminal spaces of professional and cultural in-betweenness. As a diasporic re-settler, I (Kanwarjeet) walk through many doors each day. In this autoethnography, I utilize the metaphors of “storytelling,” “walking,” and “doors” to consider the intricacies of the journey a diasporic self makes, peregrinating through professional and cultural hyphens, concomitantly. I invite my readers to co-tread, walking the story that I tell.