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This chapter documents the ‘coming of age’ stage in many a PhD student’s trajectory: leaving the safe nest of the familiar university and testing one’s wings as an early career researcher. Being labelled a ‘migrant’ doesn’t help. Universities across the globe are increasingly embedded in neoliberal economies, and academic precarity has become normal. For early career academics already operating in this ‘gig economy’, being a migrant doubles discrimination and disadvantages due to race, gender and lack of social capital. I draw on incidents from the past four years that saw me moving to New Zealand from India, finishing my PhD, and trying to find work in my new ‘home’ country. Using a ‘survival’ toolkit built from feminist, post-colonial and mobilities theories, this chapter aims to make sense of what it means to ‘belong’ in a sector embroiled in seismic shifts, and indeed, liquefaction across …