Autoethnographies in ELT

Transnational Identities, Pedagogies, and Practices

Bedrettin Yazan, Suresh Canagarajah, Rashi Jain, Bedrettin Yazan, Rashi Jain, Suresh Canagarajah, Bedrettin Yazan, Rashi Jain, Suresh Canagarajah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367428587
• eBook ISBN: 9781000202762
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This innovative volume showcases the possibilities of autoethnography as a means of exploring the complexities of transnational identity construction for learners, teachers, and practitioners in English language teaching (ELT). //

The book unpacks the dynamics of today's landscape of language education which sees practitioners and students with nuanced personal and professional histories inhabit liminal spaces as they traverse national, cultural, linguistic, ideological, and political borders, thereby impacting their identity construction and engagement with pedagogies and practices across different educational domains. The volume draws on solo and collaborative autoethnographies of transnational language practitioners to question such well-established ELT binaries such as 'center'/'periphery' and 'native'/non-native' and issues of identity-related concepts such as ideologies, discourses, agency, and self-reflexibility. In so doing, the book also underscores the unique affordances of autoethnography as a methodological tool for better understanding transnational identity construction in ELT and bringing to the fore key perspectives in emerging areas of study within applied linguistics. //

This dynamic collection will appeal to students, scholars, and practitioners in English language teaching, applied linguistics, TESOL education, educational linguistics, and sociolinguistics.

Part 1
Traversing Liminal Spaces in Communities, Cultures, and Languages

1Challenges and Successes in Negotiating Identity and Asserting Agency as an Irish, Transcultural, Boundary-Spanning, ELT Academic

Margaret M. Lieb

Increasing transnational migration has invalidated the assumption that people will live all their lives in one place, within fixed national borders, following one set of national and cultural norms (Levitt, 2004). Many international migrants exhibit dual socialization, the adoption of two cultural orientations at the same time—those of the “home” and the “host” culture—facilitated by technology and international travel, wherein immigration no longer entails a complete separation from the country of origin (Lucic, 2013). Individuals who survive and thrive in multi-layered, multi-influenced societies have been described as “boundary spanners” (Yagi & Kleinberg, 2011), as they manage dual (or multiple) cultural identities and have internalized schemas from more than one culture while easily switching between them. In doing so, they leverage “multiple repertoires of cultural knowledge” (p. 630) and are thus equipped to address problems that arise “at the interface of cultural boundaries” (p. 630).

There is resistance, however, to the notion of “dual loyalties.” In the United States, some argue that immigrants “do not assimilate Anglo-Protestant values” (Huntington as cited in Levitt, 2004, p. 2). Given that the United States hosts the largest number of international migrants, adherence to a “core set of shared values” such as Anglo-Protestant beliefs is problematic as it fails to recognize the complexity of multi-ethnic, multi-layered societies and the wide variety of worldviews contained therein. While inter-ethnic disintegration may potentially threaten societal stability, the erosion of perceptual barriers such as prejudice and ethnocentrism is key to mitigating such threats (Mustafa, Hamid, Ahmad, & Siarap, 2012). I argue that the erosion of such barriers requires a paradigm shift away from traditional, dominant notions of cultures as separate and monolithic, to increased awareness of transculturality, a concept coined by postmodernist Wolfgang Welsch and defined as simultaneously “involving, encompassing, or combining elements of two or more cultures” (Pahor, 2018, p. 1952).

Background

I am an Irish, transcultural, boundary-spanning, English language teaching (ELT) academic. I have spent almost three decades as an international migrant, living, studying, and working, first in the United States and later in Japan, while maintaining close ties to my home country, Ireland. For most of my academic and professional life, I have been positioned as a “cultural other.” My lived experiences reflect how I have wrestled with and continually renegotiated identity while striving to manage three (often conflicting) cultural identities. Despite having internalized components of three cultural schemas, and having evolved as a transcultural “boundary spanner,” I have nonetheless faced perceptual barriers, prejudice, and ethnocentrism, predicated on traditional, dominant notions of culture (Mustafa et al., 2012). I have confronted canonical storylines that attempt to determine the lives of “ideal social selves” (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011) both in the United States and in Japan, where failures in integration and inclusion, along with discursive patrolling of borders (Rudolph, Yazan, & Rudolph, 2019) have meant that I have rarely fit neatly into prescribed categories. As such, I have frequently been assigned fluid “parts” or “roles” that have served to demarcate the construction of my personal story and the social acts that are deemed acceptable in these “roles.” Langenhove and Harré (1999) referred to this social phenomenon as “positioning” and noted that it occurs both unconsciously (tacit positioning) and consciously (intentional positioning). Predicated on these conceptualizations of tacit and intentional positioning, both integration failures and border patrolling have emerged as significant obstacles to my identity negotiation and agency assertion as an Irish, transcultural, boundary-spanning, ELT academic.

Why Autoethnography?

Autoethnography involves analyzing personal experience to make sense of cultural experience and challenges universal, canonical narratives often yielded by sterile, objective, impartial scientific research (Ellis et al., 2011). Autoethnography also communicates real and lived experiences to broader audiences than traditional academic writing through the use of engaging, evocative, relatable personal narratives, accompanied by in-depth analysis (Chang, 2008). Autoethnography thus helps to confront the tension in the social sciences between objectivity, a “scientific, systematic approach to data collection, analysis, and interpretation” (Chang, 2008, p. 45), and subjectivity, which allows researchers to utilize personal analysis and interpretation. Because autoethnography broadens cross-cultural understanding and sensitivity and can help to foster positive human relations in multicultural settings, particularly in education (Chang, 2008), I chose autoethnography to explore my transcultural, transnational experiences, and my struggle to negotiate identity and assert agency as an ELT academic.

Gathering My Stories

My data collection involved the accumulation of personal narratives and vignettes based on my experiences as an “international student,” a “foreign” teacher, and an ELT academic. Because I relied heavily on personal memories as the source of data, I utilized techniques recommended by Chang (2007) to facilitate recall. I made an inventory of both successful and challenging transcultural experiences in the United States and in Japan, chronicling my academic and professional journey. I searched for patterns, collected field texts (including letters, emails, documents, and photos), and had conversations with significant others who knew me well on my decades-long transcultural journey. To employ the ethnographical approach of participant-observation, I documented not only my behaviors and reactions to each vignette or experience, but also my thoughts at the time and since. Acutely aware of the limitations of memory, which “selects, shapes, limits, and distorts” (Chang, 2007), I engaged in self-introspection, both alone and in the company of others, through “interactive introspection.” My interactions with significant others in my life helped me to relive and recollect my past memories while also providing “external data” to validate my “internal data.”

Because autoethnography seeks deeper understanding of the self in connection with others through the cultural interpretation and analysis of autobiographical data (Chang, 2008), I selected experiences that reflected my struggle to maintain international allegiances and affiliations, while maintaining strong ties to Ireland, a country that I still regard as “home.” One criticism of migration studies is that they sometimes neglect to analyze migrants’ points of origin, focusing solely on their experiences in destination cultures (Nyhan, 2011). Therefore, I begin by describing two salient sociocultural, historical features of my country of origin that impacted my identity formation and subsequent negotiation of identity: Emigration and colonialism. Next, I recount my experiences in the United States as an “international student” and as a “foreign” teacher, which forced me to grapple with discursive border patrolling and positioning in the face of deficiencies in inclusivity and integration. Finally, I describe my experiences negotiating identity in Japan in three different roles: As an ELT academic at three Japanese universities, as a transnational graduate student completing an American doctorate via distance education, and as a group dance fitness instructor.

Analyzing My Stories

My data analysis and interpretation were initially guided by the question, “Why does a self perceive, think, behave, and evaluate the way it does, and how does the self relate to others in thought and actions?” (Chang, 2007, p. 9). This question led me to reflect on historical and sociocultural forces that contributed to my identity formation, such as gender, religion, education, socioeconomic class, and geography. I realized as I chronicled my academic and professional journey that one of the most salient influences for me was nationality. Thus, I employed aspects of “native ethnography,” wherein researchers study their own people (Chang, 2008), and whose origins have been attributed to peoples subordinated either through colonization or economic forces (Ellis et al., 2011). My analysis revealed that Ireland’s history as marginalized, subordinated, and colonized significantly impacted my identity formation by causing me to tacitly self-position, which both inhibited and fostered my willingness to assert agency in my subsequent experience overseas. I also challenge power in research by recounting my experiences in two American graduate programs: A master’s in education and a doctorate in higher education leadership.

As is usually the case with autoethnographic inquiry, my data collection, analysis, and interpretation were non-sequential, intertwined, and more web-like than linear (Chang, 2007), as I alternated between reflection on my time as a transcultural migrant and my formative years in Ireland. I attempted to address this nebulous mix of analysis and interpretation by seeking out recurring patterns, utilizing existing theoretical frameworks, and cross-referencing with other ethnographies. I began writing in the midst of this process and continually edited and reframed my analysis in the light of additional insights. My autoethnography incorporates aspects of reflexive ethnography (Ellis et al., 2011) as I document the self-transformation process that resulted from critical reflection on my experiences.

My Storied Identity

Emigration: The Irish Experience

Arguably, few countries are more intimately familiar with mass outward migration than Ireland. Catalyzed by the Great Famine of the 1840s (Quinn, 2010), Ireland’s migratory profile during most of the 18th and 19th centuries was “one of emigration rather than immigration” (Corcoran, 2002, p. 177), with return migration rare, if not impossible. Emigration also dominated 20th-century Ireland, and Corcoran (2002) identified two categories of emigrants who departed in the 1980s. The first is the more traditional type of Irish emigrant, termed “reserve army emigrants” (p. 188), who, due to the prevailing economic conditions in Ireland, were forced to seek employment elsewhere, serving in secondary labor markets. They faced significant economic and social constraints similar to those experienced by previous generations of Irish emigrants, including prejudice, discrimination, and complex immigration regulations. The second group, characterized as part of “the transnationally mobile educated élite” (Corcoran, 2002, p. 186), departed Ireland by choice and secured primary positions in “global cities.” This group of reflexive agents exhibit self-awareness and a desire for self-actualization, and are empowered to shape their personal narratives. They also assert agency in terms of their life trajectory and careers and have “forged ‘flexible subjectivities’ in the context of a transnational field of action” (Corcoran, 2002, p. 187). The majority of Irish families were profoundly impacted by emigration—including my own, as my great-grandfather was the only member of his family to remain in Ireland after his siblings emigrated to North America.

As I reflected on my experiences as an international migrant, I realized that apprehending the emigrant experience through a binary lens is problematic as aspects of my experience align with both groups described above. I identify with “t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Autoethnography as Research in ELT: Methodological Challenges and Affordances in the Exploration of Transnational Identities, Pedagogies, and Practices
• Part 1 Traversing Liminal Spaces in Communities, Cultures, and Languages
• Part 2 Traversing Liminal Spaces in Academic Research
• Part 3 Traversing Liminal Spaces of Pedagogies
• Index