Down and out but undeterred: A narrative on utilizing the new mobilities paradigm for contraint-based methodological research as an international student during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic led to lockdowns in Australia that inhibited the mobility of residents across the nation. While keeping many from leaving the country under a Covid Zero policy, the lockdowns also kept numerous international students from entering the country to commence their studies. Such disruption led to major constraints for a plethora of doctoral students and their graduate research projects. The constraints brought on by pandemic disruptions especially impacted every stage of the graduate research experience for aspiring ethnographers. Such challenges ranged from the stressful navigation of Covid restricted international travel, working around the university bureaucratic runaround in an ever-changing pandemic scenario, to discovering and utilizing the new mobilities paradigm to construct a doable thesis project under strict timelines. The reflective narrative presented here is a small contribution to the greater collection of stories about international graduate researchers making the most with very little during a constraint filled period of academic history.