Copyright

Julia Mourão Permoser

Published On

2026-04-29

Language

  • English

Print Length

12 pages

THEMA

  • JBFH
  • JHB
  • JHBA
  • JN
  • JBFA

BISAC

  • SOC007000
  • SOC026000
  • SOC026040
  • SOC008000
  • EDU015000

Keywords

  • migrant academics
  • academic precarity
  • academic mobility
  • autoethnography
  • postcolonial academia
  • global higher education

A Train to Vienna

Temporary Contracts, International Mobility and Academic Life in Austria

Chapter of: From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity

This chapter offers a personal narrative of growth and resilience within the instability and uncertainty of the Austrian academic system. It explores how structural changes intended to internationalize and modernize academia produced new forms of exclusion and insecurity, particularly for women and migrants. Through autobiographical reflection, the chapter highlights the tension between privilege and precarity, and how autonomy, rather than competitiveness, fostered scholarly growth. It concludes with a poetic meditation on dislocation, uncertainty, and the search for professional and personal grounding.

Contributors

Julia Mourão Permoser

(author)
Professor of Migration and Integration at Danube University Krems
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3635-310X

Julia Mourão Permoser (PhD) is Professor of Migration and Integration at the Danube University Krems, Austria. She heads the FWF research project “Migration as Morality Politics” and co-directs the research initiative “The Ethics of Migration Policy Dilemmas” at the European University Institute in Florence, as well as being an Associate Editor of “Comparative Migration Studies”. Prof. Permoser was born and grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She studied international relations at Georgetown University, holds a master’s degree in international studies from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and a doctorate in political science from the University of Vienna. Her research interests include migration, citizenship, human rights, democracy, and the politics of inclusion and exclusion.