“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.

Notes

Notes

1 The term American references the collective Americas (North, Central, and South), but is often used to reference the United States. Following Varenne’s (2008) example, I enclosed the term in quotation marks the first time I used it to indicate it as a “contentious” term, and also to acknowledge there are “words we cannot escape but cannot take as given” (p. 366). Moreover, like Dolby (2004), I consider the term American to be a fluid and globalized social construction, often differentiated from the term United States that references a state formation (e.g., government, geographic territory).

2 Szekely (1998) defines heritage‐seeking students as ones who choose “a study abroad venue because of family background—national, religious, cultural, or ethnic” (p. 107). She asserts that this often means choosing a “venue because of some level of familiarity or resonance with less emphasis on the difference” (p. 107).

3 As a term, glocalized refers to the “interplay between globalizing and localizing forces” (Robertson, 1997, as cited and summarized by Jungck & Kajornsin, 2003, p. 35).

4 Generally, Unionists/Loyalists support Northern Ireland’s continued affiliation as part of the United Kingdom, while Republicans/Nationalists support a politically unified island.

5 I was one of two instructors who organized and led the study abroad trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland. The other instructor contributed to the research study by reviewing my proposal, participating in focus groups, copying student journals, and reading two versions of my manuscript.

6 I was introduced to the term multiculture in Negra’s (2006c, p. 354) work. She does not, however, define her particular usage of the term. In my usage, I conceptualize it as an efficient and apt synonym for a plural (diverse, multicultural) society. This plurality is socially constructed through demographic calculations, sociopolitical discourses, and popular cultures.

7 Family Guy is an animated comedy show begun in 1999.

8 Riverdance opened in Dublin in 1995.

9 Bagpipes are part of the Irish musical tradition. They are usually quite visible at celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day (see media coverage, for example, Kugler & Dobnik, 2010). Of course, the bagpipes are also part of many musical traditions, mostly notably, the Scots’.

10 Drawing on Byron’s (1999) work, Nash (2008) explains how St. Patrick’s Day “celebrates a specific ethnic identity but in doing so commemorates a wider shared history of immigrant struggle, sacrifice, and success” (p. 49).

11 See, for example, Barth (1996) for a discussion of ethnic boundary maintenance.

12 In the past decade, Ireland has become home to citizens from over 150 nations, and since 2002, the number of immigrants in some school districts has risen by 120 percent (Seaver, 2007). Moreover, Negra (2006b) describes the “importance and the complexity of Ireland’s (frequently uneasy) transformation from a nation renowned for its emigrant outflow to one that has now (for the first time) become the destination of immigrants” (p. 15).

13 Widespread riots linked to social tensions erupted in France during November 2005 (see, for example, Laurence & Vaisse, 2005).

14 Though the idea of identity as relational is not new (e.g., Dolby, 2004; Dolby & Cornbleth, 2001; Phillion etal., 2008; Said, 1979), I focus on, and develop an analysis of the processes and practices of relational encounters through study abroad programming.