Negotiating Un/Familiar Embodiments: Investigating the Corporeal Dimensions of South Korean International Student Mobilities in Auckland, New Zealand Francis Leo Collins* Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore Received 3 September 2007; revised 15 December 2008; accepted 16 January 2009 Keywords: international students; transnationalism; embodiment; New Zealand; South Korea INTRODUCTION ‘Bodies are maps of power and identity’ (Haraway, 2004: 37–38) I n recent years, the body and conceptualisa- tions of embodiment have begun to be viewed as more important in geography and many of its cognate disciplines (Rose, 1995). In no small part this ‘dash towards things corpo- real’ (Callard, 1998: 388) reflects the considerable efforts of feminist geographers to challenge the long-standing privileging of mind over body, rationality over irrationality, masculinity over femininity, and sameness over otherness (McDowell and Court, 1994; Longhurst, 2001). To focus on the body is, however, not simply to examine the material or discursive body inde- pendent of space, place, or social relations. Rather, the attention given to the body in geography is very much a concern for ‘embodiment’ or the lived experience of bodies – ‘the links between conceptualizations of the body . . . and states of bodily being, bodily experiences and bodily activities’ (Moss and Dyck, 2003: 58). This increased attention on the processes of embodiment has contributed to new perspectives and theorisations throughout geography, partic- ularly in areas such as cultural geographies (Davidson and Milligan, 2004) and health geographies (Parr, 2002), as well as economic (Nagar et al., 2002) and political (Mountz, 2004) POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE Popul. Space Place 16, 51–62 (2010) Published online 15 September 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/psp.576 Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. ABSTRACT This paper discusses the friction involved in the transnational lives of South Korean international students living and studying in Auckland, New Zealand. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which these individuals negotiate familiar and unfamiliar embodiments as a part of their everyday lives in Auckland. Through three ethnographic case studies – the role of interpersonal networks in the negotiation of urban space, the online/off- line use of internet cafes, and the story of a group of volunteer students – this paper reflects on the different processes of embodiment in ways that offer useful insights into practices and experiences of transnationalism. This includes understanding the small details of the everyday lives of international students in Auckland and the reciprocal relationship they have with other bodies and the urban spaces they come to inhabit. Moreover, the paper illustrates the manner that scholarly understandings of transnationalism can be expanded through a focus on the embodied dimensions of everyday life. It suggests that much of what is considered transnationalism is in fact part of the ordinary everyday practices that individuals such as international students use to negotiate and make familiar the different material and immaterial spaces they encounter in migration. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. * Correspondence to: Francis Leo Collins, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, AS 2, #03-01, 1 Arts Link, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117570, Singapore. E-mail: geoflc@nus.edu.sg