Paper short abstract:

The Indian postgraduates in my study navigate constructions of the academic life course as well as Indian ideas of the perfect timing of events in life. I argue that "temporal agency" (Flaherty 2011) is an important means in that process of navigation.

Paper long abstract:

Germany has become an attractive destination for Indian postgraduates. Based on data from my ethnographic fieldwork in Göttingen I show how Indian postgraduates navigate what Jacobs and Winslow (2004) term the "academic life course". Academic careers are imagined as a linear progression of steps from receiving a PhD to becoming a full professor. While in reality, the academic trajectory is often less linear and ruptured by detours and insecurities. How do young Indian postgraduates imagine their academic life course? How does the academic life course interact with Indian middle class ideas about the perfect timing of events in life (especially marriage)?

My interlocutors are aware that they are expected to marry at the "right age". At the same time they actively try to shape their future in academia by completing a Ph.D. "abroad", a step that in line with dominant discourses ought to increase their career chances. The young Indian postgraduates choose Germany because universities offer the possibility to complete a PhD in three years. By choosing a place based on temporal considerations the Indian postgraduates exercised "temporal agency" (Flaherty 2011). They want to be "faster", to accelerate their careers and to influence the timing of marriage. In their attempts to navigate different constructions of the life course they create their own notions of the right timing and sequence of events in life. Thus after completing a PhD and getting married the next step would be "to do a few more postdocs", preferably in the US.