Third Space Theory Research Articles

Biculturalism Leading to Third Space Identity: A Postcolonial Analysis of Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees

The current paper aims to highlight biculturalism in immigrants which leads to Third Space Identity in host countries. The study will explore the construction of third space identity in the protagonist Ada Kazantzakis by analyzing the theme of hybridization in Elif Shafak’s novel,’ The Island of Missing Trees’ (2021). Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of third space and hybridity is the key to maneuver the existing research. Bhabha’s leading role in postcolonial theory provokes the study towards the world famous book The Location of Culture (2021) by scoring the conceptual imperatives and political consistency of postcolonial Cyprus during 1974 in the novel, ‘The Island of Missing Trees’ (2021). Qualitative method is used for data collection. The objective of the study is to find out how biculturalism in immigrants leads to third space identity and how it affects the protagonists’ life in the novel. This research will be beneficial in bringing of modern themes and the way Shafak’s dealt with these themes artistically.

Another Gulmohar Tree – A Tale of Identity and Hybridity

This research analyzes the novella, Another Gulmohar Tree, written by Aamer Hussain, a Pakistani writer. The aim of this study is to analyze the theme of identity crisis by applying the Theory of Hybridity and Third Space given by Homi K. Bhabha. It has been investigated how the change of culture makes a person hybrid. This research further discusses an individual's challenges while moving from one place to another. Moreover, the mixture of eastern and western cultures also has been explained in the study concerning Hybridity. This research shows the collision of Pakistani and British cultures in Pakistani society. The individuals who migrate from one place to another experience loss of culture, norms and religious customs, resulting in a change of identity, Hybridity, and third space, along with giving way to a distorted concept of self-realization and adjusting to a new culture. The research highlights the difference between the cultures, creating a new sense of individual and their expression.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIRD SPACE IN ELIF SHAFAK’S TWO NOVELS

This article analyzes how public spaces—in the forms of two cafes and a tavern—are constructed as a third space in Elif Shafak's two novels, “The Bastard of Istanbul” (2008) and “The Island of Missing Trees” (2021). This research is a qualitative study with an approach in spatiality. The theory used in this study is the theory of Thirdspace by Edward Soja. The results of the study indicate that as the representation of the third space, the two cafes and a tavern in Shafak's two novels promote resistance to the conflicts and their impacts on the two conflicting groups, as well as constructed as sites that unite the groups. In “The Bastard of Istanbul”, the communication and relationships between the characters in Café Kundera and Café Constantinopolis show resistance to issues related to the 1915 Armenian genocide that gives impacts on the Turkish and Armenian relationship. Moreover, in “The Island of Missing Trees”, the characters’ friendship and intimacy at The Happy Fig Tavern show opposition to the ongoing internal conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots which causes ethnic and territorial separation. A further examination of the third space reveals two different ways in how Shafak presents public spaces in both novels, specifically in terms of the visitors’ portrayal and the two distinct eras in which these public spaces are set. The outcomes of these two differences show that: (1) "The Bastard of Istanbul" is more political and explicit in its criticism of the Turkish government; and (2) "The Island of Missing Trees" focuses on the vulnerability of the third space during social conflicts, whereas "The Bastard of Istanbul" focuses on post-conflict recovery and reconciliation.

On culture teaching practice in senior high school English Class from the perspective of intercultural Third Space

While recent research on the cultivation of EFL learners’ cultural awareness in senior high school has highlighted the pedagogical coping strategies based on culture teaching phenomena, theory-driven culture teaching practice has been under-explored. Informed by the theory of intercultural Third Space, this paper reports how to guide senior high school students to construct intercultural Third Space, so as to enhance their cultural awareness and intercultural critical thinking competence from the three-dimensional perspective of attitude, cognition, and behaviour, through a teaching case in the four stages of attitude cultivation, knowledge construction, simulated communication, and critical reflection. The study indicates that the concept of intercultural Third Space can theoretically make up for the deficiency of culture teaching in Chinese senior high school English class and practically provide teaching design support for classroom instruction.

Safe/brave spaces in virtual exchange on sustainability

This article explores the potential for fostering critical intercultural and global awareness through Transnational Virtual Exchange (TVE) focused on sustainability. The study is based on a lingua franca exchange between university students in Argentina, Poland, and Sweden. A qualitative content analysis of student e-portfolios unveiled reflective dimensions construed here as safe/brave spaces, echoing Andreotti’s (2006) notion of soft versus critical global citizenship education. Using theories of critical interculturality and third space, the analysis shows potential for developing participants’ critical reflection through TVE. However, the findings also reveal how in-depth reflection is often a lonely endeavor, overshadowed by project tasks that might unintentionally steer learners toward safe topics and consensus. So far, critical reflection is an underexplored area in empirical Virtual Exchange (VE) research. Student voices in this study bring to the fore questions regarding what it means to approach global citizenship education critically through online collaboration. The findings have implications for future design of VE projects where the focus is on social change through action-oriented tasks, but where critical and dialogic reflection after the completion of a pedagogical task is the salient part.

Cultural Hybridity: Question of Britishness in David Edgars Testing the Echo

Cultural hybridity is one of the visible phenomena of our era. It captures the spirit of various writers around the world with its celebration of cultural difference and fusion. Many factors accelerated the growth and spread of this phenomenon. Among them is the migrations, the globalization mantra of unfettered economic exchanges and the supposedly inevitable transformation of all cultures. In the first decade of the new millennium, British theatre seems preoccupied with various issues such as war on terror, social fragmentation, cultural segregation and the huge number of immigrants. However, the ever-increasing migration in the United Kingdom made British playwrights think seriously in the is in flux. No doubt, the new comers have their own values, which, on the long term, affects the host ones. Though it is conceivable, the clash between these cultural values can be met in a culturally viable atmosphere. What is the most important thing is that the newcomers tried hard to assimilate in a new hybrid space where all values meet together. The present paper is an attempt to shed light on the acceptance and rejection of these values as described by David Edgar’s Testing The Echo . It is done with due reference to Homi K. Bhabha’s theories of cultural hybridity and third space. This paper poses the following questions: In what ways may cultural hybridity be applied in David Edgarʼs selected plays to highlight non-British characters. Is it possible for the newcomers to integrate into the British society? If they do, what are they going to lose?

‘Surging Like the Sea’: Re-Thinking the Spectacle of the Crowd in Early Modern London

Many texts of early modern London are fascinated with crowds. The city’s growth and resulting crowdedness were essential to the city’s theatrical spaces, as the presence of crowds ‘turn[ed] London into a theater’. But even as it is celebrated as a symbol of civic life, evocations of the urban crowd brim with anxiety over its illegibility and unsettling of the very performance space it helps to create. This article re-assesses the London crowd as just such an essential but essentially unstable spatial and rhetorical phenomenon. Working with an array of period texts, this article reads their figuring of the urban crowd specifically in terms of Soja’s socio-spatial theory of Thirdspace and the improvisational power of urban spatial relations.

Sites of Sanctuary: Examining Blackness as “Something Fugitive” Through the Tactical Use of Ethnic Clubs by Haitian Immigrant High School Students

In this theoretical article, the authors elaborate a revisited theory of Third Space from a BlackCrit/Afropessimist stance, exploring Black youth ethnic and racial identity formation searching for place and belonging in the context of a raced world. To illustrate their theoretical contributions, the authors draw on empirical research conducted with Haiti-born and U.S.-born Haitian immigrant high school students and their teachers. They argue that, as Third Space, Haitian ethnic clubs were sites of sanctuary where students felt free to challenge, play with, and question complex ideas about racial identity, sites of resistance to test and exercise resistance against demoralizing forces, sites of fluidity for Black adolescent development, and sites for regulating and protecting Blackness. Thus, Third Space Theory from a BlackCrit perspective can offer an anti-racist approach to capturing how Black youth become aware of contradictions and ambivalence in the worlds they inhabit and their acceptance of situations where ambivalence helps in their learning and also their survivance.

All at-sea with learning spaces, interculturality and Yin-Yang

ABSTRACT This article explores how a third space could be constructed in an outdoor setting. It uses at-sea sail-training to substantiate the construction of a third space. It uses Yin-Yang philosophy to enrich existing theories of third space and experiential learning. The finding reveals that the thirdness of the oceanic space has a positive impact on self-other understanding in intercultural contexts. It concludes by presenting a three-dimensional Yin-Yang third space of ocean experiences upon tall ships and suggests nine elements in intercultural programmes should be reflected upon as a basis for creating a learning space of interculturality.

Thirdspace Investigations: Geography, Dehumanization, and Seeking Spatial Justice in Kinesiology

ABSTRACTThe 39th Annual Dudley A. Sargent Lecturer challenges the kinesiology professions to be intentional in addressing issues related to spatiality. Beginning with an outline of how such a focus has viability for the profession, the author overviews: (a) spatial justice and mobility through the lens of Gordon Parks; (b) surfing, localism and cityhood efforts; (c) notions of space and dehumanization as defined by Herbert Kelman; and (d) the need for a renewal of kinesthetic consciousness in the face of unrestricted technocracy in physical education. The second part of the lecture presents an interpretation of Edward Soja’s theory of Thirdspace in the midst of a social climate influenced by protectionism, isolationism, xenophobia, and anti-elite discourse. In relaying Olivia Butler’s caution on hierarchical thinking, the author ends by imploring academic institutions to invest in sustainable reconciliation efforts for the survival of humanity.

Chinese student teachers’ teaching practicum experiences: Insights from transformative learning, third space, and dialogical-self theory

This paper uses the theories of transformative learning, third space, and dialogical-self theory to examine the professional learning experiences of Chinese student teachers during their teaching practicums. Drawing upon observations, semi-structured interviews, and reflective journals, the participants’ transformative learning experiences encompass 1) disorienting dilemmas, 2) reflection upon and exploration of assumptions, 3) gaining confidence in new roles, 4) behavioural changes, and 5) the integration of new perspectives. Meanwhile, the participants continually created their multiple I-positions in the teaching practicums, which include: consolidation/confirmation, elaboration/expansiveness, contradiction/disequilibrium, and stability/minor change. The implications for creating viable third spaces, such as hybrid and boundary-crossing zones, in universities and schools are also discussed.

“No Había Bilingual Education:” Stories of Negotiation, Educación, y Sacrificios from South Texas Escuelitas

ABSTRACT In 1940s America, along the Texas-Mexico border, las escuelitas – or little schools – were places Mexican American parents sent their young children to begin their academic learning. These escuelitas, however, were no ordinary schools. They did not teach students to read, write, and speak in English. Rather, they sought to develop, maintain and celebrate the linguistic and cultural heritage of the communities they served by teaching students a Mexican inspired curriculum exclusively in Spanish. Through narrative inquiry, we explore the escuelitas, as experienced and recounted by nine former escuelita students, as sites of negotiation, agency, and resistance. Drawing on theories of Third Space and nepantla, we explore the ways in which the escuelitas participants take up/put to use the knowledge they acquired at the escuelitas to enact third spaces in order to navigate hegemonic institutions. We underscore the complexity of these experiences by contextualizing the escuelitas historically.

Becoming a bilingual teacher in a Chinese university: a case study

Higher education in China has developed significantly over the past decades. Many universities have established cooperative partnerships with western universities, and overseas courses are being progressively introduced to China. At many Chinese universities, a cohort of teachers endeavor to open up bilingual subjects as a bridge to their students’ future learning; accordingly, there are higher expectations of the teachers involved in bilingual education and challenges for their professional development. In this case study, the researcher invites a Chinese professor to reflect on his experiences of bilingual instruction at a university situated in central China. After describing how the bilingual course in the case study was set up and the difficulties confronted, this study uses theories of hybrid identity and third space to contextualize how bilingual teachers experience hybrid identity construction and transformation in their adaptation to the new challenges. This in-depth study will shed light on the professional development of bilingual teachers in China’s higher education industry.

Marginal Musical Spaces at St Aldates, Oxford

St Aldates is a large Charismatic Anglican church in the centre of Oxford. The music of the regular Sunday services stands within the tradition of Contemporary Worship Music and the musical leaders cultivate an intentional sense of consistency. Within this environment, individuals are often expected to set aside existing musical tastes and attachments, adopting an attitude of worship regardless of their relationship to the musical environment. Away from the Sunday services there are a number of more marginal musical spaces in which a wider range of musical forms find expression. In this article I draw on third-space theory and my own ethnographic fieldwork to explore the alternative musical dynamics which two such spaces open up and the different relationships which they enable between individuals’ diverse musical attachments and the musical life of the church. In line with divergent streams in the literature, I suggest that these spaces carry both productive and disruptive potential, both challenging and supporting prevailing musical norms.

Baghdad’s thirdspace: Between liminality, anti-structures and territorial mappings

Wedged in-between the dense urban grain of Baghdad, blast walls of t-shaped concrete have littered the streets and neighbourhoods since 2003, after the US led invasion. The idiosyncrasy of these walls lies in their exaggerated spatial liminality. They appear, change location and disappear overnight, and on a daily basis, leaving Iraqis to navigate through labyrinths of in-between spaces. This article critically reveals the new social and power structures that have emerged in the context of the city in response to the condition resulting from this unique urban intervention. This uncanny spatial and social condition of permanent liminality will be analysed through Victor Turner’s critical theories of liminality and anti-structure coupled with Edward Soja’s theory of Thirdspace, interpreting, through a series of territorial mappings, a complex liminal condition in a contested and disrupted city.

Body-mapping and the Human Spirograph: Performance drawing in Thirdspace

Abstract In performance drawing, the dancing body performs within particular kinds of spaces, leaving physical trace marks behind on surfaces such as plastic sheeting or paper. In this article I analyse Tony Orrico’s performance of 8 Circles (2010) to question the relationship between lived body and graphite mark. I draw on Soja’s theory of Thirdspace (1996) to rethink performance drawing as a bridge between different types of knowledge. This understanding of performance drawing reveals liminal spaces of heightened sensory and motor awareness where body, graphite and movement plane combine to become reflections on a body’s energetic flows, manifest as a body-map of somatic practice.

Occupational Sub-Cultures, Jurisdictional Struggle and Third Space: Theorising Professional Service Responses to Research Data Management

Effective Research Data Management (RDM) is becoming an increasing concern in UK universities as a result of mandates from research funders. The study explored the usefulness of theories of occupational sub-culture, jurisdictional struggle and Third Space to understand how librarians, IT staff and research administrators view developing services to support RDM. Data were collected through 20 semi-structured interviews with staff in the Library, IT services and Research Office of a research intensive university in Northern England.The notion of occupational sub-culture directs attention to the different ways professional services view RDM. Broadly speaking, IT Services focussed on short term data storage; Research Office on compliance and research quality; librarians on preservation and advocacy. In terms of Abbott's theories, the Library was the only department claiming a new jurisdiction in RDM. This could be seen as an extension of its existing jurisdiction in Open Access and Information Literacy. The other departments claimed to be short of resources to take on such a complex project. Some interviewees feared RDM might be risky and demand lots of resources. Third Space theory is a powerful way to think about roles that might emerge in a new intra-professional space as RDM services become a reality.

The Hybrid Nature of School Space and the Manifestation of Violence in South African Schools

Violence in South African schools seems to challenge the conventional perception of school as a safe place. Drawing from the qualitative data of a project that investigated the dynamics of violence in South African schools, this paper illustrates the manner in which violent practices in schools speak to the hybrid nature of school space. Using theories of hybridity and Third Space, the authors argue that as researchers and educators advocate for students to brings funds of knowledge they learn from outside school to develop a Third Space for learning, they overlook the effects of violence as part of those funds of knowledge. The paper concludes by posing a challenge to educators and researchers that, while useful knowledge from outside school is necessary for holistic learning, adequate preparation is needed for addressing the unwanted funds of knowledge.

The Hybrid Nature of School Space and the Manifestation of Violence in South African Schools

Violence in South African schools seems to challenge the conventional perception of school as a safe place. Drawing from the qualitative data of a project that investigated the dynamics of violence in South African schools, this paper illustrates the manner in which violent practices in schools speak to the hybrid nature of school space. Using theories of hybridity and Third Space, the authors argue that as researchers and educators advocate for students to brings funds of knowledge they learn from outside school to develop a Third Space for learning, they overlook the effects of violence as part of those funds of knowledge. The paper concludes by posing a challenge to educators and researchers that, while useful knowledge from outside school is necessary for holistic learning, adequate preparation is needed for addressing the unwanted funds of knowledge.

“Wide open to rap, tagging, and real life”: preparing teachers for multiliteracies pedagogy

This article examines a teacher educator's implementation of a pedagogy of multiliteracies in an adolescent literacy course. The purpose was to foster pre-service teachers' knowledge and dispositions to enact multiliteracies pedagogy. This article synthesizes the theories of multiliteracies pedagogy and Third Space to explore the opportunities and challenges presented by key learning experiences for pre-service teachers' development of knowledge about and dispositions towards multiliteracies pedagogy. This article argues that emphasizing the Situated Practice and Critical Framing components of multiliteracies pedagogy can promote pre-service teachers' productive negotiations of the conflicts they experience in developing dispositions towards multiliteracies pedagogy.