Day 2017-04-16

Hello fellow globetrotters!

My name is Alex Lloyd. I figure I will kick off my blog for CAPI and QES while I sit here in the Los Angeles Airport for the next couple of hours, before my final flight to Melbourne. 

I am a graduate student in the first year of my master’s in Anthropology. Currently, my thesis title is Overseas Female Indonesian Students & Sexuality: An Exploratory Case Study. I am looking to explore the ways sexual subjectivities are produced, maintained, and negotiated in the transnational context of overseas education in Australia. In particular, I am considering the impacts and negotiations of campus sexual culture, transnational cultural expectations, and the role of cross-border communications and social networks. 

I am using a feminist theoretical approach to look at female sexuality in a transnational context, considering the ways this overseas education may impact female sexuality, as conservative expectations from home (may) be disrupted by the migratory experience. I am also considering the myriad ways women explore and express their sexualities and how women’s agency manifests itself in these contexts. For example, veiling, in many contexts, can be a stunning example of women reclaiming the right to choose for their own bodies and express their faith and personhood. 

As a result, my research is taking me to Melbourne, Australia for the next three and a half months. While my research itself is meant to take place May-July, I am heading out early to participate in a conference called Multimedia, Mobility & the Digital Souteast Asian Family, where I will be presenting my work thus far. Yay!

Sitting in this airport now, I am overwhelmed by a mix of emotions from excitement to anxiety and everything in between. Though it is a whirlwind, I am looking forward to this incredible opportunity to be back in a city I love, integrating myself in the community and getting to know and celebrate an amazing group of women. 

Here’s to the next step in this wonderful, empowering, stressful, surprising, and perpetually entertaining journey of graduate school.

A.