Abstract

The Australian Permanent Migration Program and related settlement services have been critical to Australia's success as a stable, democratic and culturally diverse nation. However, emerging research has revealed that this success may come with a high price for as many as one in four skilled migrants who find themselves employed beneath their level of education, expertise and experience, which we define as underemployment. We designed a study that sought to understand the settlement experiences of 36 Asia-Pacific-skilled migrants working as managers. Incorporating Spivak's concepts of subalternity, othering and alterity as a theoretical framework, our analysis uncovered how migrant identity intersected with the linguistic prejudice and othering that arose in migrants' everyday interactions with coworkers and employers. We found that the skilled migrants experienced linguistic prejudice and discrimination despite their high levels of English language proficiency.

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

8-1-2025

Volume

63

Issue

4

Funding Information

Australian Research Council

School

School of Business and Law / School of Education

Grant Number

ARC Number : DP1092722

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

Wiley

Comments

Jogulu, U., McAlinden, M., Parris, M. A., & Mutum, J. (2025). Skilled migrants’ experiences of othering, alterity and language policing. International Migration, 63(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.70074

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