Educating Americans for “Overseasmanship”: The Peace Corps and the Invention of Culture Shock

Abstract

Since culture shock was first coined in the mid-1950s, the term has become a fixture of popular discourse and continues to organize general understandings of the way individuals experience cultural difference. This essay examines the emergence of culture shock in relation to the 1961 establishment of the US Peace Corps, an institution that contributed to both scholarly and popular understandings of the concept. Through an analysis of both the early scholarship on culture shock and the term’s appearance in volunteers’ accounts and Peace Corps histories, the essay identifies two complementary discourses at play in the culture shock story, which together supported the Peace Corps’ project of “educating Americans for overseasmanship”: the concept of culture shock harnessed the expert authority of an emerging American social science to a classically sentimental narrative of individual crisis, growth, and recovery. Ultimately, the essay argues, culture shock offered volunteers a framework through which to make sense of their unsettling encounters abroad, but one that individualized, psychologized, and depoliticized their confrontations not only with cultural difference but also with inequality, poverty, racism, and imperialism.

Adult Education Through a Cosmopolitanism Lens: A Review of the Research Literature

“…They defined cosmopolitanism as a personal perspective that entails ethical and philosophical orientations to include worldviews, dispositions, or identity (Bakkabulindi & Ssempebwa, 2011; Bilecen, 2013; Coryell, Spencer, & Sehin, 2014; Guardado, 2010; McNiff, 2013; Williams, 2013). Characteristics of cosmopolitanism include an individual’s openness (Froese, Jommersbach, & Klautzsch, 2013; Schein, 2008), commitment to multicultural sensitivity (Anderson, 2011; Cloete, Dinesh, Hazou, & Matchett, 2015; Guardado, 2010; Starkey, 2007; Szelényi & Rhoads, 2013), awareness of difference (Bamber, 2015; Sidhu & Dalla’Alba, 2012), development of cultural competence (Nilep, 2009; Ye & Kelly, 2011), adaptability (Coryell et al, 2014; Guardado, 2010), utilization of intellectual devices (Cloete et al, 2015; Sobré, 2009), and employment of appropriate discourse tools (Amadasi & Holliday, 2017) These attributes were suggested as helping individuals interact sensitively and effectively across different cultures, linguistic settings, and political economies. Others posited that cosmopolitanism articulates a sense of belonging in multiple communities (Gu & Schweisfurth, 2015; Khandekar, 2010), while Saito (2017) described cosmopolitanism as imagining a situation where world citizens belong to one community (through the common language of English).…”

“…Others further argued for critical tenets of moral cosmopolitanism. These researchers asserted that cosmopolitanism requires a critical stance and personal cultural reflexology (Amadasi & Holliday, 2017; Bamber, 2015; Cloete et al, 2015; Schein, 2008). While Bamber’s (2015) understanding of cosmopolitanism calls for recognition of all people’s equal moral worth and agency, Schein (2008) clarified that cosmopolitanism in the United States necessitates “an openness to the world that is itself an affirmation of a rooted, immutable, and deeply raced, gendered, and classed national character” (p. 101).…”

“…Within these nuanced understandings of the concept of cosmopolitanism, numerous researchers offered additional variants that helped theoretically frame their studies. For example, Nilep (2009), Schein (2008), and Starkey (2007) all discussed cosmopolitan citizenship, a sense of self that connects with complex, multiple identities (Starkey, 2007) and with individuals of a global community that are “knowledgeable and competent to interact with others across the borders of the nation state” (Nilep, 2009, p. 231). Similarly, Coete et al (2015) and Gu and Schweisfurth (2015) concentrated on the development of transnational cultural citizenship.…”

Race and Participation in International Experiential Learning: Case-Based Exemplar of a Habitat-University Partnership in El Salvador

“…Though there is recognition that race requires increased focus in IEL (Thomas & Luba, 2018;Thiessen & Huish, 2013;Heron, 2007), calling attention to it is still 'like breaking a taboo' (Bandyopadyay & Patil, 2017;White, 2002). This is likely tied to the still deeply rooted mindset especially of White people from the global north, as 'educators' of racialized, backward others needing to be taught, saved, modernized, and controlled (Schein, 2015;DiAngelo, 2011;Pease, 2010;Kothari, 2006b;Power, 2006). Recognizing that the North-South world was built on 'salvational' discourses and long-standing Eurocentric colonial notions of 'progress', 'civilizing', 'development'the White man's/women's burden -inherently racialized foundations, for our case study we draw from Critical race theory -CRT, to more effectively incorporate race in IEL learning and engagement processes.…”

“…labels its 'colonial continuities' (Clost, 2013;Thomas & Chandresekera, 2013;McGehee, 2012;Pluim & Jorgensen, 2012). It is clear that we must consider current manifestations of IEL in the face of often mutually reinforcing historical concerns like: perpetuation of dependency, imposition of Eurocentric beliefs and values, 'othering', the 'civilizing mission', the 'helping imperative', 'benevolent imperialism', and situating southern communities as merely educational platforms serving northern participants (see variously: Benham Rennick, 2015; Schein, 2015;Fizzle & Epprecht, 2013;Drolet, 2013;MacDonald, 2013;Thomas & Chandresekera, 2013;Smith & Laurie, 2011;Vodopivec & Jaffe, 2011). Generally, what we take from this complex of concerns is that IEL practitioners must be wary of the historic practices and language of 'development' which "… tends to reproduce the same global patterns of inequality and poverty, leaving intact -if not reinforcingthe dominant position of the North…" (Palacios, 2010, p. 864) 3 And , drawing on White (2006) who sees race as a sort of 'shorthand' for inequitable north-south relationships, we conduct our case study in light of the tensions between the 're-inscription' and 'normalizing' concerns of uncritical engagement (Heron, 2007), with the challenges and disruption to the development conventions we hope it can provoke (Thomas & Chandresekera, 2013;Crabtree, 2013;Smith & Laurie, 2011).…”