Switching Cultures: Personalised Reflexivity in Practice

Abstract

Research on sojourn experiences appears to indicate that temporarily living abroad interrupts and redirects peoples’ cultural identity as they negotiate and shift their identities to better fit with the new environment within which they are operating (Dickens, Womack, & Dimes, 2019; Zhang & Xaio, 2021). In this chapter, a biographical reflexivity lens is used to explore events that were captured from a living abroad life: firstly, as an international student from mainland China attending university in the UK, and secondly as an international academic following a move from being a student to being a full-time member of the teaching staff at the same university. The shifting of my cultural identity to one more reflective of those found in my host country was subtle, and one which I was not conscious of until challenges by Chinese students provoked reflection about my ‘Chineseness’ since they had expected me to conform to their understanding of Chinese ways of teaching with its emphasis on rote learning and memorisation (Ai & Wang, 2017; Wang, 2018). Where ‘I’ is used in the chapter, it refers to the first author whose experience forms the basis for the chapter.

Citation

Liu, A., Lock, D. and Hack-Polay, D. (2022), "Switching Cultures: Personalised Reflexivity in Practice", Caputo, A., Lock, D. and Hack-Polay, D. (Ed.) International Environments and Practices of Higher Education, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 55-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-590-620221006