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Being a Student in Austria as a Migrant: Gendered Perspectives on Borders and Belonging

A blogpost by Ezgi Şahin

Migration is often discussed in terms of numbers, policies, and abstract theories. Yet, behind these categories lie individual experiences deeply shaped by gender, class, and race. As a student who moved from Turkey to Austria, I have found myself not only crossing geographical borders but also navigating invisible boundaries of belonging. In this blog post, I aim to connect my own journey with debates in gender and migration studies, illustrating how personal stories can illuminate broader theoretical discussions.1

From Personal Experience to Structural Insight

Two years ago, when I entered my very first class, I had never felt more foreign in my entire life. In my department, I was the only migrant. At that time, my therapist told me that this was actually something to be proud of, that I had achieved something important. Yet, I did not feel this way. Every time I walked into the classroom, it seemed as if the word “migrant-foreigner” was written on my forehead. I was hesitant to speak German, ashamed of my accent, and terrified of making grammatical mistakes.

Beyond the classroom, however, the hardest part was dealing with bureaucracy. Entering the country felt like signing a contract: No, I will not stay forever in your country, I will study and then return home, please accept me.” Every bureaucratic barrier seemed to reinforce this message—that I was allowed to study, but I ultimately had to go back. During a particularly challenging period marked by health-related difficulties and an interruption in academic progress, the rigidity of bureaucratic procedures became especially evident. At the immigration office, officials stated that there was no legal basis for remaining in the country and advised immediate departure to continue medical treatment elsewhere. This situation created a sense of exclusion. However, instead of leaving, a formal legal appeal was initiated, and after a year-long process, the visa was reinstated.

White flipchart with key points in red on "Visa, asylum, mechanisms, policies"; from the seminar in 2025. Underneath the headline are the following key points: racial hierarchies; visum, asylum, and passport appear legaly neutral; colonial logic -> global north protects its racial boundaries; racial infrastructure -> shaped by global racism; restriction of mobility -> to sustain racial exclusion; no free movement; legal tools as racial fillers

Flipchart on “Visa, asylum, mechanisms, policies” from the seminar (Levke Harders, 2025) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DE

On a structural level, this personal experience revealed how belonging is not only about emotions or cultural participation, but also about structures of power and gendered hierarchies. Scholars argue that belonging is not a natural or given state, but rather a constant state shaped by borders, institutions, and everyday practices. For example, Levke Harders and Falko Schnicke define belonging as something constantly redefined across borders, while Floya Anthias emphasizes that belonging always intersects with categories such as gender, class, and immigration status.2

Belonging, Power, and Gendered Institutional Processes

A sense of belonging is not only constituted by cultural differences or language barriers, but also by institutional structures that explicitly remind some individuals, e.g. migrants, of their outsider status. My encounter with the immigration office demonstrated that a sense of belonging can be disrupted at any moment and is deeply intertwined with power relations.

Applying Anthias’ perspective, my encounter with the immigration office shows how belonging is shaped not only by who we are, but by how institutions categorize us. Instead of a purely emotional sense of home, belonging becomes something negotiated at a counter, in front of officials who decide whether you can stay or must leave. Anthias’ idea of translocational positionality helps make sense of this: in that moment, I was not just a student, but also a migrant, a woman, someone temporarily unable to meet academic expectations, and therefore positioned as less legitimate. The immigration office acted as what Anthias describes as a “gatekeeping structure,” reminding me that belonging can be withdrawn at any moment. This makes it clear that belonging is never fixed. It is something continuously shaped by power, vulnerability, and the way institutions choose to see us.3

Reflecting on these experiences, I have come to understand belonging not as a stable achievement but as a fragile and contested process. It is shaped by language, culture, and social interaction, but it is also profoundly influenced by gendered power structures and bureaucratic control.

For migrants, belonging often means balancing between inclusion and exclusion, recognition and rejection, home and displacement. My story is only one among many, yet it raises a broader question: How can we imagine forms of belonging that are not conditional, temporary, or controlled by those in power, but instead inclusive and sustainable for everyone?

 

Ezgi Şahin completed her undergraduate degree in Translation Studies in Türkiye before starting the master’s degree in Gender, Culture and Social Change at the University of Innsbruck. She aims to establish an initiative in the future where she can combine her personal hobbies with supporting migrants.

 

Diesen Artikel zitieren: Şahin, Ezgi: Being a Student in Austria as a Migrant: Gendered Perspectives on Borders and Belonging, in: Migration and Belonging, 28/11/2025, https://belonging.hypotheses.org/6940 [Abrufdatum].

  1. Artificial Intelligence (ChatGPT) was used to assist with sentence formulation and language refinement in this essay. The author retains full responsibility for the content. []
  2. Harders, Levke / Schnicke, Falko: Practices of Borders and Belonging: Historical Perspectives, in: Harders, Levke / Schnicke, Falko (Hg.): Belonging across Borders: Transnational Practices in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Oxford, New York 2022, 1-29; Anthias, Floya: Translocational Belongings. Intersectional Dilemmas and Social Inequalities. London 2020. []
  3. Anthias 2020. []

OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Ezgi Şahin (28. November 2025). Being a Student in Austria as a Migrant: Gendered Perspectives on Borders and Belonging. Migration and Belonging. Abgerufen am 7. Februar 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/158i0


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