INTRODUCTION: THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE STUDENT

Not all international students are secured all the time by bonding relations. Often networks with family and friends are attenuated by distance or by cultural displacement just when they are most needed. For others traditional bonds do not meet all their needs for sociability. Many experience loneliness during their stay. For some loneliness becomes a permanent condition that constrains their agency.

A person is lonely when the need to belong is unsatisfied. As with feelings of hunger, joy and sorrow, loneliness is a human condition that almost everyone has known. Feelings of loneliness cannot be wholly eliminated but they can be modified through the actions of the agent and/or others. Loneliness is more likely to occur under circumstances such as prolonged foreign travel or the loss of significant others. It is one of the defining features of the international student experience.