“We’re Sort of Imposters”: Negotiating Identity at Home and Abroad

Abstract

In this article, I argue that through study abroad programming, university students engage in relational encounters between self (home culture) and other (host culture)-twinned concepts that constitute and are constituted by each other. Moreover, I assert that these encounters take place not only during the students' time abroad, but also well before it as students produce and consume various identities through performances, representations, and discourses. These practices and processes at home shape the ways in which students create meanings abroad. In making these claims, I look closely at students' experiences in a short-term study abroad program to Ireland and Northern Ireland. I assert that it was through the students' constructions of Irishness as commodities, claims, and contestations that they encountered their Americanness. The qualitative data for this study were collected in the mid-2000s, and include focus group transcripts, journals, photo-reflections, as well as related program and course documents.

The Transformative Power of Travel? Four Social Studies Teachers Reflect on Their International Professional Development

“…Given concerns raised by Talburt (2009), Jewett (2010, and others, I have attempted to reconceptualize Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 19:27 24 August 2015 the act of learning in international contexts in light of postcolonial critiques of this phenomenon (Blaut, 1993;Ngugi, 1993;Said, 1993). Previous studies of international professional development have tended to treat border crossings as innocuous occurrences, ignoring or downplaying how the legacy of imperialism frames such interactions.…”

“…Talburt's (2009) analysis of one international professional development program in Spain, which utilized Pratt's (2008) postcolonial contact zones as a lens for understanding this experience, suggested that learning through travel is a "dynamic process of potentialities produced at the nexus of multiple places and spaces, presents and pasts, and individual and collective histories" (p. 109). Similarly, Jewett (2010) argued that self (home culture) and other (host culture) constitute and reconstitute each other throughout international professional development. Mahon (2009) came to complimentary conclusions by drawing on theories of poststructuralism and her own "nomadic journey."…”

“…Other studies indicated that the experiences associated with international professional development, such as negotiating unfamiliar cultures and languages and observing pedagogical practices unheard of in their home nations, cultivate innovative and desirable professional skills and practices (Garii, 2009;Ileleji, 2009;Quezada, 2004;Wilson, 1993b). Finally, researchers have begun to take note of the ways that traveling and working abroad allows educators to confront their national identities and reassess their nation's place in the world (Dolby, 2004;Doppen, 2010;Jewett, 2010).…”

International and Intra‐national Student Mobility: Trends, Motivations and Identity

“…As such, students of African American descent may go to Africa while students who are of Irish descent may decide to study on exchange in Ireland (Matz ). For example, in Jewett's study of a short‐term study tour with American student to Ireland, participants repeatedly cited their Irish ancestry as “evidence of their Irishness” (, 642). These students claimed their Irish identity through their family heritage.…”

The problematization of racial/ethnic minority student participation in U.S. study abroad

“…In addition, many of the discourses associated with study abroad are associated with images of whiteness and privilege (Gore 2005) and notions of reconnecting with ancestral roots (Jewitt 2010), discourses which in particular may conflict with African American identity and historical experience, disenfranchisement, and forced separation from ancestral ties. The view of study abroad as an economic and racialized activity is incredibly strong.…”