The background of my project is the residential mobility of international students. From my own experience, I have moved 7 times in the last 5 years, and I also asked 5 international students about it. I found they also lived in more than 5 places when they study abroad. The factors that may affect their housing instability are rent, location, flatmate, lease, policy, and holiday. For example, one student said she has a three-month holiday every year and then she will back to China, so she doesn’t want to pay the three-month rent without living there and she will rent a new place after the holiday. I did research on residential mobility at this stage and research shows residential mobility is a double-edged sword. It is important in understanding the self, social relationships, and well-being (Oishi 2010, 5).
Based on those factors may affect student’s housing instability, the stakeholders of this area can be international students, landlords, student accommodations, real estate agency and university in the UK. They have the power to influence students’ residential mobility. I interviewed a landlord in London who has a 3-bedroom flat to rent. He is busy in his full-time job and he is living far from that flat, so he wants his tenants are stable. Not all his tenants are international students, but he always gives the international students a discount when they back in China on a long-term holiday. As for the student accommodations, they always have a time limitation of the lease based on the academic calendar which can keep resident stability indirectly.
Then I was thinking about what change I want to see. Combined with my personal experience, I think bedroom is the place that will influence my sense of belonging when I live in a foreign country. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, it takes me a few seconds to think about where I am and then I realize this is my bedroom. According to Li and Zhang (2015), modern psychological research shows that the objective environment interacts with subjective perceptions and influences people’s emotions, work and learning efficiency. The physical and cultural environment, such as the overall layout, decorative style, and surroundings of the living environment, is important for the development of students’ mental health. However, most international students don’t have opportunities to decorate their room due to housing instability and it can influence their sense of belonging in a foreign country. I was inspired by the Black Mirror (S1E2 – Fifteen Million Merits), there is a digital bedroom and the screen can be change. Maybe the students can live in different locations but same decoration by using these screens.