I’m super excited to share about a new book in town called International Student Mobilities and Voices in the Asia-Pacific: Letters to Coronavirus, published by Palgrave MacMillan.
This project stems from the COVIDISM digital repository initiative seeded during 2019-2020 at a time when the world was thrown into a state of anxiety and where border controls were tightened and mobility – both internationally and internally – was kept to minimal. Asia Research Institute was kind enough to co-host this independently built website and helped it evolve into a way of researching during the pandemic.
This new book, an edited volume, offers intimate glimpses and insights into the experiences of 20 international students during the peak of the pandemic in 2020-21, documenting their voices in the form of letters addressed to COVID-19. These letters were also interpreted by a line up of wonderful scholars who gamely accepted my invitation – during the height of pandemic – to reflect on, frame, and connect students’ narratives to scholarship, resulting in 8 thoughtful commentaries. Lastly, bridging these letters and commentaries were 8 beautifully illustrated scenes inspired by the stories told by these international students. Special shout-out to Yikang Feng who gifted these illustrations to enliven the narratives and the pages. Check out the set of images he has made for this book and other creative works.
The beauty and resiliency of this project lies in its digital, transnational, and international scope, spanning collaboration across multiple places and between students, researchers, and educators – all of whom were not spared from the pandemic’s grip on our individual lives. Huge thanks to all 31 contributors – students and scholars – who helped make this edited book come true and take tangible form.
To all my colleagues researching on international education and student mobility who contributed scholarly commentaries: Suzanne Beech, Sophie Cranston, Sarah Jane D. Lipura, Minyoung Kim, Elizabeth Baik, Peidong Yang, Yanxuan Lu, Chris McMorran, Bingyu Wang, Artemio Arturo Cortez Ochoa, and Le Ha Phan. Heartfelt gratitude to all colleagues who have taken time to write for this book, which has been such a generous thing to do especially during the height of the pandemic when my invitation was sent out. I was deeply touched, and still am, by this generosity. Without your insights, this book would not have been possible.
To all student letter contributors: Juliet Tingshu Zhu, Joseph Ching Velasco, Yuri Suzuki, Cao Liang, Qian Hui Tan, Dionysia Jia Ying Kang, Yijie Wang, Shunan You, Pengfei Pan, Betina K. Choa, Mawutor Kwame Ahiabu, Hyeyoon Cho, Jason Chun Yat Yeung, Camilo Montealegre Sanchez, Jian Feng, Qing Li, Emily Lim, Aizuddin Mohamed Anuar, Hanna Jadwiga Wdzięczak, and Sarah Hui Ann Tan. A huge thanks to all of you who have generously shared with me your experiences in the form of letters to COVID-19. It has been a humbling experience to read through all 20 letters and learn about the diverse struggles and resilience of your lives as international students at the time of writing. Without your voices, the core foundation of this book, this book would not have been possible.
The book is available digitally on the SpringerLink website: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-3675-3
chengyien. 