The journey as a transcultural experience for international students

Abstract

An international two-year Erasmus Mundus MA, Transcultural European Outdoor Studies (TEOS), uses the journey as a central metaphorical concept, the “peregrinatio academica”, and experiential pedagogy. Students study human nature interactions through the lens of outdoor education and recreation while travelling for a semester at a time in three European countries: England, Norway and Germany. We argue that the transcultural concept is facilitated by the diverse nationalities of the student cohort and the concept and experience of the journey. Empirical evidence from student feedback, course discussions, and staff reflections is used to explore the ways in which the programme elucidates ideas of expert and Eurocentric knowledge of landscape and learning by valuing individual knowledge constructions and new research. Simultaneously, we argue that the typical European “gaze” on the “other” somehow is reversed as “others” gaze at European cultures, and, to some degree, contribute to destabilizing culturally taken-for-granted knowledge. This offers new opportunities for a more nuanced transcultural exploration of human nature interactions in diverse landscapes and cultures. We conclude that the knowledge and skills developed by this programme supports the development of “transculturalized” students with the enhanced capacity to shift between and discuss diverse positions and ways of viewing and knowing.

Keywords:

• Transcultural
• internationalization
• landscape
• journey
• pedagogy
• outdoor education

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to our colleagues Peter Becker, Martin Lindner and Martin Vollmar at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, for their important contributions to the development and organising of the Erasmus Mundus joint masters degree programme Transcultural European Outdoor Studies (TEOS) and to the European Commission for financially supporting the programne (2011—2017). We also want to thank the TEOS students of 6 cohorts for their contributions, and to the blind reviewers, whose critical but constructive comments helped clarify our analytical perspectives.