Beyond Normalized Academic Language: Re-search into Self-academic Identities and Voices Beyond the Precreated Academia of Higher Education Through Third Space

Conference: The Asian Conference on Education (ACE2022)
Title: Beyond Normalized Academic Language: Re-search into Self-academic Identities and Voices Beyond the Precreated Academia of Higher Education Through Third Space
Stream: Higher Education
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Authors:
Gumiko Monobe, Kent State University, United States
Bee Viton, Kent State University, United States
Haoting Cui, Kent State University, United States
Noor Qomaria Agustina, Kent State University, United States
Nawal Alnomasy, Kent State University, United States
Wafa Farhat, Kent State University, United States
Yu Li, Kent State University, United States

Abstract:

As a transnational professor from Japan teaching at a public university in the USA, the principal investigator, began the collaborative work of transnational third spaces because of her own struggles to find her voice and confidence in an English only Eurocentric university. This action research intends for transnational scholars to examine and re-shape their scholarly identities and confidence outside of traditional academic discourse. Nine female PhD students from three continents meet at the principal investigator’s home, the third space, to embolden each other through sharing lived experiences, and question and deconstruct barriers that stem from differing languages, nationalities, sexualities, genders, and divided personal-professional views in search for who they are as scholars as a whole person. Data is collected from discussion, journaling, and individual meetings/conversations as well as artistic, poetic and multilinguistic ways to express the purpose of boundary breaking. The preliminary analysis’s findings in this unique space are: 1) participants can cross borders by listening and talking to each other using concrete real life experiences, 2) Collective conversations become the anchor to help develop critical awareness over how power has influenced the perception of self- identity, 3) The scholars encourage each other to re-shape their own self-perception by decolonizing the internalized self-image as scholar in the English/Eurocentric university. This research calls for the academic community at large to reexamine support and training for new scholars from diverse backgrounds, so that they will be able to bring much wider and deeper skills to the decolonized academic community.

---

Conference Comments & Feedback

Place a comment using your LinkedIn profile


Share this Presentation