World-travelling: foreign-born faculty women of color navigating multiple identities in US academia

Abstract

Framed by post- and decolonial feminist perspectives and using Lugones’s concept of “world-travelling,” we examined the shared experiences of foreign-born faculty women of color in navigating U.S. colleges and universities. We employed a qualitative interpretative phenomenological research design and conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 self-identified foreign-born faculty women of color (FBFWOC). We found that these women continually performed multiple, and at times conflicting, identities as they travelled in and out of academic and non-academic worlds. In doing so, they deployed strategies that required additional efforts to successfully function in their faculty roles. The world-travelling that FBFWOC engage in involves a constant learning process that, while enriching, also taxes their time and energy. This world-travelling is a form of border thinking and resisting forms of difference. We offer suggestions for future research and implications for practice.