Transnational TESOL Practitioners’ Identity Tensions: A Collaborative Autoethnography

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, we, as three transnational TESOL practitioners (TTP), engage in a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) to examine our professional identity tensions. Theoretically, we follow the premise that the tensions we experience in our professional life can be productive experiences for identity‐oriented reflection and, as we work toward resolving these tensions, we can explore and negotiate new dimensions of our identities. Methodologically, we explore the affordances of CAE in combining internal and community dialogues to make sense of our identities, which are situated at the nexus of the personal and the cultural. Each one of us describes and analyzes one major tension that has been part of our professional identity negotiation as TESOL practitioners in the US. Addressing our research question, we conceptually argued that tensions are inevitable in our identity work and found that border‐crossing and in‐betweenness predominantly characterized our identities as TTPs. We cross borders and carve out in‐between spaces, identities, and voices for ourselves in our professional lives.