Performing the ‘global citizen’ in social imaginaries: the value of intercultural exchange for Australian students in Mexico

Abstract

ABSTRACT Due to the recent increase in Australian students undertaking study abroad opportunities, an effect of a neoliberal society, there has been a plethora of literature in this area with the extant literature focusing on students’ motivations and subsequent benefits of exchange. This paper examines how the capital acquired during intercultural experiences are performed by Australian exchange students. Interviewed before, during, and after Mexican sojourns, the students initially (re)produced a stylised pastiche of ‘Mexico’. Made in urban Australia, this imaginary comprises Frida-Kahlo themed restaurants and Day-of-the-Dead exotica. As a result of geographic distance and limited migration from Mexico, Mexicanidad in Australia operates as a vacant conceptual category into which ‘cool’ yearnings can be inscribed. Despite problematising their pre-departure constructions at times, the students continued to employ this version of Mexicanidad in their performance of the role of Mexican expert, in Mexico and on their return. This article theorises the functions of such identity performances, proposing that exchange experiences, and the intercultural capital they acquire, serve as a method by which students can construct and perform transnational identities.