ABSTRACT. This duoethnography examines the lived experiences of three international students and novice researchers from the Global South as they navigate transnational academic spaces in the Global North. Centring our intersectional identities, we explore how the ‘academic fairytale’ is shaped by circulating discourses and how its collision with reality exposes the (in)visible borders of visa regimes, climate and epistemic belonging that structure international academic life. As we came to understand, the academic fairytale landscape is not just a personal perspective. Still, it is institutionally and socially constructed and refracted through one’s position in intersecting structures of mobility, privilege and institutional power. Amid these challenges, hope lies in the emergence of our student-led network – an informal community of care that brings together scholars researching migration from Global South perspectives. We introduce the concepts of academic commensalism and mutualism to understand the survival and navigation strategies that novice Global South researchers develop within an academic system governed by unwritten rules.

Keywords: community of care; international students; duoethnography; Global South

How to cite: Nguyen-Trinh, T., Nguyen, H., & Phuong Le, A. (2026). Border-crossings and community of care: A duoethnography of becoming in transnational academic spaces. Knowledge Cultures, 14(2), 208–233. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc142202611

Received February 28, 2026 • Received in revised form June 1, 2026
Accepted July 15, 2026 • Available online August 1, 2026