Finding Myself Research Articles

Losing my brother, finding myself

Losing my brother, finding myself

The space we are in

As musicians, we work in a variety of different spaces, some of which are unfamiliar and with their own dynamics. But in order to be as productive as possible, we have internalized the notion that, particularly as performers, we must keep our personal and professional lives apart. In my personal case, after moving to the Netherlands to begin my master's program and finding myself without a place to live, I became aware of how much this circumstance affected my playing. Despite the initial negative impact of the situation, I was able to see potential for an artistic endeavor, leading me to embark on the creation of an interdisciplinary piece titled "The space we are in" – a composition for amplified viola, tape, and video – in an attempt to materialize the feelings and thoughts surrounding my personal situation. In this study, I documented each stage of the artistic development process, alongside an analysis exploring the philosophical and psychological connotations of the concept of space, and contrasting it with the idea of place. Additionally, I delved into intriguing concepts such as Kathleen Coessens' artistic web of practice and examined various artistic works where the interaction with space plays a significant role. While working on this project, I discovered a specific interaction with my environment that not only helped me adjust to my new living situation but also –and this is something that I hope to share with the readers of this research– increased my sensitivity and helped me comprehend my artistic vision.

‘Where Have I Found Myself’? Exploring How Black Social Work Students Navigate Identities in School-Based Practice Learning

Abstract In 2020, the social work in schools (SWIS) project was implemented with an initial cohort of fifty-four social work students from an Eastern English university. With the aim of exploring the student experience, we undertook an initial focus group. One unanticipated aspect of these discussions was how black students reflected on their experience of being placed in predominantly white schools, which merited a follow-up focus group to explore this in more depth. Intersectionality underpinned this study as it offered an analytical approach to understand the interconnected identities of black students within the context of schools. Constructivist grounded theory was used to analyse the data, and three categories were identified in understanding experiences of participants: Race and Experiences of Being Placed in Schools; Intersections of Race, Racism, and Acceptance; and Experiences of Learning in Schools. Concepts of belonging, acceptance and racial identity underpin these categories and help us understand black students’ experiences of undertaking SWIS placements. Black students developed their skills, knowledge, self-concept and confidence in schools. Conclusions are drawn highlighting the centrality of harnessing black students’ cultural wealth and knowledge to facilitate positive relationships for learning.

‘Now I Have Found Myself, and I Am Happy’: Marta Olmos, Sex Reassignment, the Media and Mexico on a Global Stage, 1952–7

AbstractIn May 1954, the story broke internationally of Marta Olmos, recipient of the first widely known, male-to-female sex reassignment conducted in Mexico. Her doctor, Rafael Sandoval Camacho, claimed that homosexuality could be cured and that, through transitions, queer Mexicans could be made into ‘socially useful’ citizens. While initially celebrated as a scientific triumph placing Mexico among elite nations, and receiving support from individuals close to the Ruiz Cortines administration, opinions soured as critics – physicians, politicians, cartoonists and clerics – condemned Marta for renouncing manhood through a fraudulent cure that threatened the binary sex/gender order underpinning Mexican nationalism. Sex reassignment, understood through foreigners including Christine Jorgensen and associated with ‘anti-social’ queer Mexicans, thus exemplified misplaced priorities during a period in which the state sought to ‘modernise patriarchy’. While self-affirming for Marta and permitted unofficially through state indifference, sex reassignment became seen as anti-Mexican. Thus, Marta's case illuminated how the state reconciled development with policing its patriarchal order.

Awakening: Losing then finding myself in STEMM

For over 25 years, Dr. Elsie Calderón-Spencer has witnessed the effects of DEI initiatives in STEMM. She shares her story, centered on her experiences as an Afro-Latina woman navigating STEMM higher education and how they reflect the challenges Black and Indigenous people of color face.

The Complexions of Shakespeare’s Voices

Good Camillo, Your changed complexions are to me a mirror Which shows me mine changed, too; for I must be A party in this alteration, finding Myself thus altered with’t. The Winter’s Tale, 1.2.378–821 Thanks to the work of Gail Kern Paster, twenty-first-century interpreters of Shakespeare can appreciate the complex physical, psychological, and theatrical transactions in Act 1, scene 2 of The Winter’s Tale when Polixenes reads Camillo’s face and anticipates the dire news that Camillo is about to tell him: Leontes has ordered Camillo to murder Polixenes. The “changed complexions” (plural) that Polixenes observes in Camillo are visible not only in the muscles of his face but also in his skin tone. The sanguine hues of Camillo’s customary graciousness have given way to the paleness of fear and grief. Polixenes, seeing mirror-like his own condition in Camillo’s face, undergoes the same shifts in facial musculature and skin tone. These visible signs of emotion are the result of changes in body chemistry, as each man’s spiritus communicates the passions of fear and grief throughout his body. The visible signs of fear and grief are accompanied by somatic sensations of heat yielding to coldness, of moistness yielding to dryness, of relaxed muscles yielding to tight muscles.2 Also present, perhaps, in the fiction of The Winter’s Tale are differences in complexion due to different climates: the fairness of Bohemia versus the swarthiness of Sicily.3

Caring for an Aged Mother: Unsettling of Ethics

Finding myself having to look after a mother grown old and infirm, the dilemmas in the practice of care as a moral value have been sharply foregrounded—for this is a mother with whom I have clashed my entire life. Though typically taken for granted at the time, there is no denying the enduring effect of the care provided by a dedicated mother. But, over the years, this has become fissured by an acute sense of dismay, with the gradual realization that her solicitude formed part of an earnestly held, conservative, moralized gender position, which I grew to reject. Her dependence on and recognition of me as a daughter arouse intense emotions, but equally intense are the anger and resentment arising out of her stubborn refusal to even consider the difference between her and my conceptions of woman. Though agitated and alienated by this obstinacy, I find myself, nevertheless, bound to this unfreedom of geriatric care.

Finding Myself Inside Out

Abstract Finding Myself Inside Out follows a Black nonbinary person pursuing personal peace instead of conformity during their healing emergence. The liminality of medical transition heightens the contrast between submissions to cultural norms and embodied liberatory transgressions. Family is a cornerstone for interpersonal sense-making, and for that reason challenging conventional ideas of gender can be isolating. These poems capture the growing pains of taking on a new political identity and the phases of presenting a redefined self to kinfolk.

Starting with Eye, Long, And, Down, Wall, and Shelf, and: House, Grandmother, Child, Stove, Almanac, Tears

Starting with Eye, Long, And, Down, Wall, and Shelf, and: House, Grandmother, Child, Stove, Almanac, Tears Kimiko Hahn (bio) Starting with Eye, Long, And, Down, Wall, and Shelf Who invented the shelfand did they identify needor eyeball nature—say a low tide—that sparked a longing?I imagine finding myself in a caveand, unconsciously,setting down a cup,placing it on a ledge. When itcomes to imagination,walls are not always evident.For a shelf especially sobecause solutionsare often accidental. Evenincidental. That’s the longand short of sinks, bowls,bedstands, umbrellas,belts, and even hairbands.Take the blanket: whointroduced goose down? Or,who spied a wall to draw a buffalo?Chicken or egg? My parents’first bookshelf of bricks and plankswas sheer utility: Walt and Maude’sgallery of objets, art and otherwise.I wasn’t born yet. Andwhen I was born, Father hastilybuilt proper display cases,so nothing on a lower shelfcould wedge downmy baby throat. Nor could mywalleyed uncle then criticizetheir bohemian decor. Father’d said,“Shelve it, man!” Now,Funny to shelve an opinion, [End Page 71] I think. How long would it stand down?And what if the very wall crumbledunder the weight of self? [End Page 72] House, Grandmother, Child, Stove, Almanac, Tears Borrowing words from Bishop just for fun Long ago, chickens scratched outside Paia housewhile inside Grandma stood over Grandpa’s favorite childplaying by the stove and, contrary to the almanac,hoped against rain—though the luna wouldn’t’ve shed tearsif the sky let loose its own drops of tears. And when the yard filled up with sun outside the plantation house,Grandma hung bachelor-laundry and the child(my mother) toddled from the stove to her brother’s almanac(he was old enough to cut cane and the almanacgave him a heads-up on the weather) to tear out pagesand carry them out the house to her mother (my grandmother)who couldn’t read the alphabet to her child. Inside, in the large dented pot on the stove, she boiledone of her chickens. On the stove in a smaller potsteamed—if the almanac had said to plant—daikon she’d torn from the patch beyond the outhouseand laundry lines. Grandma’s seven children—the youngest would be an uncle and was the childshe was carrying—all knew the black stove with four burnerslike the almanac ad. There, decades later, Grandpa shed tears while playing hanafuda becauseI asked, Jii-chan, why’re your teeth in a cup? Grandmawas nowhere in my memory. Grandma may have beenaround since I was the child of Grandpa’s favorite—or at her stove. Was the War foretold by the almanac?When Go-for-Broke Uncle returned, were marvelous tears shed?No bakemono wandered her house! Still, [End Page 73] a house empties. Grandma set a Grandpa shrinenext to the stove and a granddaughter visits just to readthe tattered Almanac to those ancient ears. [End Page 74] Kimiko Hahn kimiko hahn casts a wide net for subject matter. In her new collection Foreign Bodies, she revisits the personal as political while exploring the immigrant body, the endangered animal’s body, objects removed from children’s bodies, hoarded things, and on. She teaches at Queens College, City University of New York. Copyright © 2022 Kimiko Hahn

Falling into the Gaps, Together: On Peer Review as Intellectual Accompaniment

Falling into the Gaps, Together: On Peer Review as Intellectual Accompaniment

A Motivation Analysis of Video Game Microstreamers: “Finding My People and Myself” on YouTube and Twitch

ABSTRACT Microstreamers broadcast their video game play and commentary to small audiences on YouTube and Twitch. To draw a holistic picture of their motivations, this study conducted semi-structured interviews employing two complementary frameworks. A Uses and Gratifications approach showed that social integrative needs predominate – even personal integrative and affective need satisfaction depend on audience. In parallel, a Self-Determination Theory approach demonstrated satisfaction of three fundamental needs: the autonomy of an artist–entrepreneur; the relatedness of a community leader; and skill competence displayed to an audience. Microstreamers are driven to “find their people” online, where, through performance, they “find themselves” anew.

An Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, Farah Stockman

An Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, Farah Stockman Jon K. Lauck and Farah Stockman Tell us about your roots in the American Midwest. I was raised in East Lansing, Michigan. Both of my parents taught at Michigan State University, and they still live in Okemos, Michigan. My dad is a big outdoorsman, so I grew up around rivers, particularly the Au Sable. Watching the canoe marathon in Grayling, Michigan, is a big family affair. My sister and her husband attended the University of Michigan. I also have a lot of cousins in Detroit. A whole branch of my mother's family moved up from Mississippi to Detroit during the Jim Crow era to work in the auto plants, and they still live there now. Many of my cousins work two or even three jobs to get by. My husband spent some time working at Albion College, so we spent time on a dairy farm nearby. Albion had some sizable factories that closed down, and the town has never really recovered. It brought home the themes of the book. What was your sense of the Midwest as a region when you were growing up? In many ways I had an idyllic childhood, growing up in a college town that had poetry readings and plenty of international flavor, in the form of graduate students at MSU and restaurants. But I didn't really appreciate it when I was a kid. I wanted to see the world and get out from under my parents. I went away to college at age eighteen and eventually went to live on the other side of the world, in Kenya and Tanzania, which felt very exciting. It was only years later, when organizing my high school reunions, that I realized how many of my friends were moving back because Michigan is affordable, with a high quality of life. Through the [End Page 109] pandemic, my parents helped take care of my daughter when we lost our childcare, so I spent an extended time in Michigan. And now I'm finding myself spending more and more time there and appreciating it in a way that I never did as a child. What did your parents teach at MSU and how did they get into those fields? My parents taught at Michigan State for much of their professional careers. My dad taught in the computer science department, and my mom taught in the communicative sciences and disorders department. My dad descended from Italian and German immigrant grandparents. His mom was a dressmaker for a time. His father directed the Henry George School in Philadelphia. My dad grew up in Trevose, Pennsylvania, where his math brain and general charisma took him to college despite the fact that his family had little money. My mother, an African American descendent of slaves in the U.S., grew up in Winona, Mississippi, during the Jim Crow era. Her parents taught at schools for Black children. Her father was also a preacher who tutored Black veterans at night. At the time, career choices for Black women were severely constrained. Had my mother gone to college today, she might have been an opera singer or an architect. But back then it was questionable whether a Black female architect would find employment. Speech pathology was one of the few professional fields open to Black women. She left Mississippi for graduate school and never looked back. Afterwards, she did a teaching stint at Jackson State University and later at Howard University, where some of her research focused on infant speech acquisition, using her own child (me) as one of her subjects. How did you decide to focus on a plant in Indianapolis to tell the story in American Made? On election night in 2016, I was stunned to see so many of my fellow Americans cast their ballots for a man who had never served even one day in government. How could that be? I asked around: Why Donald Trump? If I asked people from my home state of Michigan, I often heard one refrain: "He's going to bring back our jobs. He's going to bring the factories back." Trump had a routine at...

МОДЕЛИ РОМАНТИЧЕСКИХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ И НАРРАТИВНАЯ ИДЕНТИЧНОСТЬ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЬНИЦ ПОКОЛЕНИЙ X, Y, Z

Psychological differences between generations are especially pronounced in the interpersonal domain - romantic relationships and narratives about them. The aim was to find differences between narratives about romantic relationship of generations X (1967-1984), Y (1985-1999) and Z (born in 1999 and later). We assume that generational narratives associated with individual values (X), group values (Y), external conformity (Z) according to Howe - Strauss theory. The study involved 24 female participants aged 18 to 54 years. We used narrative interview, narrative analysis NOI (D. Hiles, I. Čermák), discourse analysis (J. Potter, M. Weatherell) and non-verbal association method. For three generations we found differences between cores of narratives (“finding myself” - X, “giving myself” -Y and “searching for “we” - Z), “storyline” (“Road” - X, Z, “Thorns” - Y), and models of romantic relationships (“individual” - X; “effective” - Y; “role-playing” - Z). Discourse of love was similar for generations X and Z (“emotional” and “humanistic”) and specific for generation Y (“rational”, “constructive”). Results are consistent with ideas of N. Howe - W. Strauss and partially consistent with A. Giddens’s transformation of intimacy. Our findings provide evidence that narratives change in a generational cycle: the concept of romantic love (X) is replaced by the idea of confluent love (Y, Z). We also discuss socio-psychological view on generational features comparing to developmental psychology

Research e-Mentorship for early-career family physicians in sub-Saharan Africa: evaluation of a pilot programme

BackgroundMany family physicians in sub-Saharan Africa are not active in research, partly due to the lack of available mentorship. The professional society for early-career family physicians in sub-Saharan Africa, AfriWon Renaissance, is well-positioned to address this gap. Here, we describe the AfriWon Research Collaborative (ARC), an online research mentorship and training programme for AfriWon Renaissance members in Africa that aims to increase research activity through an e-learning community. This online initiative for physicians in low-resource settings is significant as more medical education moves online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsARC provided research training via Google classroom over a six-month core programme period. Participants from sub-Saharan Africa were matched with both peer and faculty mentors from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the USA. We used a tiered mentorship structure focused on peer support for participants as they designed primary-care research proposals. A six-month post-programme period consisted of monthly online research work-in-progress meetings. We used an adapted RE-AIM framework to guide a mixed-methods evaluation of the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of ARC. Data from several sources, including programme logs and surveys, were triangulated to conduct both process and outcome evaluations. We conducted post-programme semi-structured individual interviews with participants and mentors stratified by low, medium, and high levels of engagement. We analysed data using descriptive statistics and mixed inductive/deductive qualitative analysis. FindingsThe programme included 25 family physicians and family medicine trainees who were placed into five mentorship teams, each consisting of two participants, one peer mentor and two faculty mentors. Participants were from Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone and mentors were from 11 countries across three continents. Of the 25 individuals, 19 (76%), continued their mentorship relationships into the post-programme phase. Six of 10 participants completed a full research proposal by the end of the post-programme period, with several mentors reporting increased confidence and competence of their mentees. Surveys and post-programme interviews showed increases in confidence in conducting and understanding of research and a positive research culture amongst active participants. One participant noted: “all of a sudden I'm finding myself asking questions; what can I do to try and improve this? And for me it's a sign that going forward, research will definitely be part of what I do”. Work-in-progress meetings facilitated continued research activity. Barriers to engagement with the ARC program included poor network connectivity, time limitations, confusion over mentorship structure and role, and personal life challenges. Over half of the participants who responded to the outcome survey reported internet connectivity as a barrier and 86% also reported time limitations. InterpretationOnline research training and mentorship is feasible and acceptable for early-career sub-Saharan family physicians. Further work is needed to determine optimum implementation strategies and scalability. Global health educators can learn from ARC's tiered e-mentorship approach and benefit from lessons learned, including the need for flexible, clearly organised structures for mentee-mentor engagement. FundingConsortium of University of Global Health (CUGH) Tom Hall grant.

Chapter 6: I Found Myself

Chapter 6: I Found Myself

Spindrift

Spindrift Erin Vachon (bio) 1. Flood I was lost at sea by the snack table, swallowing morsels of vegan carrot cake like sand. The host had pulled out his service weapon to show to the other party guests, just as Alex sailed through the storm door. I waved, buoyant at her entrance, then heard my words spill out after I said them. Do you remember anything? She huffed her low laugh. I was going to ask you that. The host began telling a war story, pointing at his collectible knives with glassy eyes. Months had passed since Alex and I had seen each other. I floated close to her flannelled arm, puzzling out how to talk about that night, when something had washed our memories of it away. ________ The seaside bar hung over the ocean, leaning on rotting beams driven down into wet sand. Patrons poured in to see bands on the weekends, rolling out from a rivulet of parallel-parked cars winding all the way down to the water. Inside they knocked back cocktails in plastic cups and sucked chicken wings off the bone. But the bar had its tricks, feigning solidity where there was little. The open planks of the front steps caught your feet, an informal sobriety test on the way in and out. Handmade curtains for bathroom stalls brushed your shins as you pissed. Stools shifted suddenly under your butt from one leg shorn too short. The back deck floated somewhere between sea and sky, trembling in heavy wind, a great ship on a journey that went nowhere at all. I'd stood on those boards and felt them creak beneath my feet, their precariousness a shivery danger, like cresting a rollercoaster with loosening bolts. The bar was already filling that night when my partner and I dropped our belongings on a table among his colleagues. I was a guest there, or a witness, listening to their happy chattering like dolphin clicks. Alex worked with my partner, and if I had seen her around only occasionally, I liked her. Slouchy cargo pants and messy blonde bun bouncing atop her head, she wove in and out of the crowd, bodies moving aside for her like swaying kelp. I sipped two mixed drinks over a few hours, leaning against my partner's arm and breathing the odd alchemy of brine and beer. I sat, [End Page 84] observing, a mudskipper perched on an unbalanced stool. The house lights went down, then flared up cobalt blue, like diving into a fish tank. A garage band tuned guitars, then thumped a bass line that overtook the beat of my heart. I began to feel part of the flow instead of beside it. Alex swirled with a dimpled grin, a betta fish refracting light as she danced. On a pass past the table, she caught my arm and drew me into the current. We whirled, the same Converse sneakers pounding on the wood floor, a similarity that felt serendipitous. We played like freshwater creatures, safe and euphoric. When she grimaced at the tall Narragansett beer in her hand, she yelled in my ear, I don't want this! You finish it off! I giggled and shoved her away. She had left half of the cheap swill sweating in my grip, and I opened my mouth to its bitterness. When I spun I saw my partner's face in the blue light, smiling at my unrestrained joy. Then I sat straight up in bed. ________ The skip from standing up to waking up was violent, a tearing of continuity. A single flicker of memory through gauze: pavement and the bottom of a car door. Black pebbled tar and my gray Converse drooping on old tread-marks. I heard my own voice, a half-lost phrase. That was all. ________ My partner woke beside me and placed a hand to my back while I hyperventilated, confused. He whispered words to soothe my displacement, the wrongness of finding myself in the wrong place and time. I had been dancing, and then I was in bed. Vertical, then horizontal. Shoeless and re-clothed, in an instant. He built a seawall against the tsunami of...

Queen's Luxury Spa

Queen's Luxury Spa Ji Hyun Joo (bio) Unbeknownst to Mother, I plan to live with her indefinitely. I moved in with her, occupying the futon in her newly purchased one-bedroom apartment, after my divorce was finalized a week ago. Of course, Mother doesn't know about the divorce because she doesn't know that I was married. Before you envision a scrappy wedding at some chapel in Vegas with the names of the bride and groom written in chalk, I assure you that wasn't the case at all. I married a man I had dated for two years in an intimate barn ceremony in New Jersey, surrounded by our friends and his family. We were married for six months before he filed for divorce. The reason I didn't tell Mother about the marriage is simple: she is firmly against my marrying anyone who's not Korean. Mother is narrow-minded in this way. During the course of the divorce, I lost the apartment, got fired from my copywriting job, had two bouts of the stomach flu, and accumulated a ghastly amount in overdraft fees. Eventually, I got my head together and decided to come back home to collect myself. When I informed Mother I was going to be staying with her for a few weeks, she lingered in her silence for so long I had to ask if she was still on the line. Then she cleared her throat and stated that it's been three years since I'd seen her or been back home. When she's not playfully berating me, she lists facts. Mother speaks in code, a language I've studied arduously between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. It's my job to read between the lines and find the messages hidden deep within these bare facts. In this case it meant that she welcomed me into her home with open arms. The sudden announcement of my descent into Koreatown, Los Angeles, did raise two questions, "What about your job? Did something happen to your apartment?" I reassured her that I'm simply using up my vacation days and that the apartment is in fine condition. I plan to take the next two weeks to come up with another lie to extend my stay. Mother is not one to fact-check. For the first four years after I moved across the country to New York for college, she took time out in her workday to call and ask if I'd eaten breakfast. She didn't ask about any other aspects of my life, but I decoded that breakfast meant: how are you? I was accustomed to not revealing much information about myself to Mother, so I kept the conversations brief and to the point, "Yes, I had cereal." As I remained many states away from her, visiting her less and less, she distanced herself, calling me once every other week to ask if I'd eaten breakfast. [End Page 83] Mother now lives on the second floor of a garden-style apartment complex. When I arrived, I was shocked at how pristine it was. Other than having her body scrubbed at the bathhouse on Saturday mornings, Mother rarely did anything nice for herself, so I assumed she had purchased a run-down property she would have to fix up. The bushes outside are manicured into perfect squares while vibrant tulips surround a welcome sign. There are bits of marble placed throughout the apartment to give it a touch of luxury. Mother, however, has not changed. She still wears sweatpants that sag at the knees and a Cornell University sweater that's severely frayed at the neck. I've told Mother that I would order another for her online if she threw that one out, but she stated it was the sole item she purchased that one time she visited me on the East Coast. My Ivy League education automatically makes me appear trustworthy and responsible. I'd like to think it balances out the sloppy mess I'm finding myself in now. If Mother knew the whole story, I'm almost sure she'd agree. ______ Mother is...

Finding myself as a cervical cancer survivor: A qualitative study.

To determine the process and meaning of the experience of women with cervical cancer who had completed treatment within less than 5 years. Qualitative study that included 13 women with cervical cancer, who participated after receiving a year of treatment. The data was collected by conducting 16 in-depth interviews that took place in participants' domiciles. Grounded theory procedures were used to conduct the analysis. "Finding myself as a cervical cancer survivor" was identified as the central dimension on the present study, confirmed by 5 subcategories: entering an unknown path, facing what no one can imagine, living with the disease, moving on regardless of the tiredness, and stop suffering for a new opportunity. Gaining an understanding of the reality that women with cervical cancer face reveals their strength and capacity to deal with difficulties and late side effects that need to be recognized by health professionals in the face of a disease categorized as deadly and dangerous.

“The Prison, By God, Where I Have Found Myself”: Graffiti at Ellis Island Immigration Station, New York, c. 1900–1923

Abstract This article analyses messages and pictures drawn on the walls by detainees at Ellis Island immigration station in New York c. 1900–1923. This fragmentary source material provides a valuable insight into the perceptions and emotions of people held in the limbo of immigration detention. Largely neglected in the historiography, the graffiti are significant as a counterpoint to official mark-making and bureaucracy. Ellis Island was an environment where the performance of writing was suffused with power, infamously in the marking out of passengers for further inspection with chalk symbols on their clothing. In the official documents, detainees ‘voices were translated, transcribed, and circumscribed. In contrast, the walls of dormitories and detention rooms formed a backstage space for personal musings, creativity, and low-level dissent.

Academic Discourse Socialization, Scaler Politics of English, and Racialization in Study Abroad: A Critical Autoethnography

In this age of rising animosity to newcomers in host societies, study abroad students are often reported to receive maltreatment and discrimination. To this end, I conducted a critical autoethnographic study that responds to the trajectory of my English language learning in the UK and explores my adjustment difficulties and factors such as racialized linguistic discrimination. It also reveals the types of agency that I employed in the process of academic discourse socialization and unpacks causes and processes of renegotiating and reconstructing my identity as a learner and user of the English language. The data for this study was gathered from Facebook posts, written assignment feedback, and my personal narratives and memory. The study reveals that upon finding myself in a community different from what I had imagined prior to my sojourn and with contested power dynamics between local peers and international students in classroom discourse socialization, I became disappointed and stressed and that, in turn, obstructed my learning process. However, my personal investment and agency later led me to develop my own community of practice with those who shared similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Meanwhile, I received what seemed to me to be racial discrimination based on my identity as a non-native speaker of English, which was the result of a scaler politics of English and perhaps blatant racism toward a student of a third-world country that saw my use of English as inferior. Therefore, the study invites institutions in host countries to reflect on their language orientation and how it is responsive (not responsive) to newcomers.