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British migration to Australia may be motivated by the paradisiacal glow in which the country is framed, but personal lives after arrival can upset these pre‐migratory spatial imaginaries, evoking feelings of darkness, doom, horror, isolation, and imprisonment. This article uses two concepts—that of spatial imaginaries and that of biographical disruptions—to unpack the stories of three British migrant women whose idealised expectations of Australia are overturned after each enters a violent marriage with an Australian man. By exploring the similarities of these women's tumultuous marital lives, I reveal how spatial imaginaries can be drastically altered by biographical disruptions that occur within intimate settings, particularly events that are violent in nature. This article highlights the unsolidified, contingent, and relational nature of migrant spatial imaginaries with an emphasis on how the startling, biographically disruptive, and emotionally unsettling nature of intimate partner violence fundamentally shapes the way spaces are viewed.

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The process of gaining a PhD does not occur in isolation; it is situated within and against the contexts doctoral students find themselves in at any given time. Through sharing three diary entries penned in the depths of my PhD in Hong Kong in 2017, I highlight the interconnections between particularly memorable events and junctures within my doctoral journey. In so doing, I reveal the importance of journaling for identifying the echoes between personal and graduate school experiences to understand the complex terrain of doctoral life.