Transnational Identities Research Articles

“We Have to Be Everything at a Time America Tells Us that We are Nothing”: enacting justice as praxis as women of color in education

Our stories matter. Stories teach, heal, and affirm our presence, struggles, and perseverance. While the academy socializes scholars to privilege individual advancement, Women of Color consistently testify to the power of collective spaces as spaces of resistance, strength, and critical consciousness. As Asian/Asian American and Black women in academia, we present our stories using a methodological approach we call, “Third World Feminist Collaborative Autoethnography.” Epistemologically, third-world feminism honors the feminist transnational identities that situate us within a global majority. Methodologically, collaborative autoethnography focuses on our joint-individual and interactional critical reflexivity as we grapple with our role, expectations, and commitments toward justice as a praxis. Through narrative and poetic reflections, we analyze relationships between public justice work and private support. while simultaneously discussing our (un)learning processes across four themes: (1) navigating academic labor expectations in dehumanizing circumstances, (2) cultivating community, (3) storying temporality, and (4) signifying spatiality.

Discursive scaling of solidarity through difference: Experiences of African women in the African diaspora

Abstract Drawing on data generated from a two-year ethnographic observation with a group of multiethnic Black women, this investigation delves into the ways they employ discursive and linguistic strategies, namely solidarity through difference and distinction, solidarity through denaturalizing difference, and solidarity through shared struggles and learning in deictically anchored interactions. The study presents a moment-by-moment analysis of culturally and socially situated conversations. These conversations allow us to see how the social actors enact different stance-taking and scaling practices to construct meanings about race that intersect with gender/transnational identities. Discursive practices show that when we closely attend to race, transnationalism, and gender, specifically considering the particularity of Black womanhood, new and more complex ways of understanding transnational identity formation emerge. Participants’ constructions indicate that women co-construct a unique brand of Black feminist solidarity that is not based on similarity but meaningfully created through differentiation and distinction. (Black immigrant women, solidarity, stance-taking, scaling and deixis difference, African diaspora, intersectionality)*

Sanctioning a space for literacy practices to promote transnational students’ identity development in a HL classroom

ABSTRACT Employing transnationalism and transnational literacies as theoretical perspectives, this study explores how two focal students from Asian immigrant families construct their transnational and transcultural identities by reflecting on their dynamic border-crossing experiences. The students’ creation of artifacts (illustrating self-portraits and composing “I Am” poems) and collection of their oral narratives are analyzed to seek how they construct and negotiate their hybrid, sophisticated, and multifaceted identities by moving across both geographical and metaphorical borders. The findings show that Asian American students shape their collective identities when engaging in authentic and meaningful literacy practices that support them to reflect on and make connections to their transnational experiences and (hi)stories. Since the literature on transnationalism has focused on Latinx immigrants, this study narrows the gap in the literature by examining how students from Asian immigrant families build, negotiate, and embody their transnational identities when participating in literacy practices that reflect their unique transnational experiences. The findings provide implications for educators that including literacy practices in transnational contexts can be powerful pedagogy as it offers ample opportunities for transnational students to reflect on their richly diverse life experiences and to connect each facet of their collective identities to make meanings of their transnational lifeworld.

Syncretic literacy practices among Arab heritage students in Denmark

This study inquires how students of Arab heritage in an urban setting in Denmark interpret Islamic literacy artefacts available in their homes, and how these interpretations reflect broader faith literacy practices in the students’ diaspora community. Through a linguistic ethnographic study design students have been invited to photograph literacy artefacts of their own choice in their homes and to discuss these photos in group interviews. A framework of syncretic literacy practices with a focus on faith literacy practices is employed to analyse data. We discuss how faith literacies in diaspora communities are inherently multilingual practices as they include the language of religious texts and its various registers, the home language, and the mainstream language. As such, these literacy practices play an important role in the formation of students’ transnational identities. Our findings indicate that syncretic literacy practice has the potential to contribute to improve the policies and curriculum of literacy education, as well as linguistic minority students’ literacy learning.

A Korean Sojourning Multilingual Child’s Diary as Translanguaging Spaces

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study delves into the diary entries of Jun, a second-grade Korean-English sojourner in the United States, to understand how his translanguaging practices contribute to his transnational identity formation. Through visual discourse analysis of nearly 100 diary entries that blend Korean and English texts with drawings, the study tracks the evolution of Jun’s bilingual narrative and identity expression. Interviews with Jun and his mother provide deeper insights into his linguistic development and the role of family in shaping his biliteracy. The findings reveal Jun’s strategic use of translanguaging as more than mere translation; it is an active construction of meaning and identity, demonstrating creativity and critical engagement with his environment. Jun’s diary becomes a translanguaging space where he navigates between languages and cultural norms, reflecting his position as a sojourner preparing for eventual reintegration into his homeland. The study emphasizes the significance of supporting sojourning children’s complex literate practices within home literacy environments, suggesting that educational systems should recognize and cultivate these translanguaging spaces for the benefit of multilingual children’s identity development and academic growth.

Рецензия: Интеграционный и дезинтеграционный потенциал идентичности в истории и современности / под ред. О. А. Харусь. Томск: Изд-во Том. ун-та, 2023. 272 с.

The publication is devoted to the review of the recently published collective monograph of Tomsk historians "Integrational and disintegrational potential of identity in history and contemporary world". The monograph presents the results of studies that focused on understanding particularities and dynamics of construct of construction of region, national and transnational identity. The study is based on sources of different origin and forms. The monograph consists of three chapters. The first chapter, mainly based on the examples of the Polish question, reveals the problem of national identity in the context of the development of Russian socio-political thought in the second half of the 19th century. The second chapter is devoted to the practices of constructing Siberian identity. This chapter illustrates the politicization of identity-related processes that reflected regional and national interests. The third chapter describes the features of the formation and evolution of European identity in the context of European integration (1992-2016). By studying different cases; the authors of the monograph come to common meaningful conclusions. It follows from the research that any construction of identity has a dual nature. On the one side, intellectual elites acting consciously are involved in the construction processes. On the other side, mass actors are spontaneously involved in these processes. The result of the construction is usually difficult to predict, since it depends on many factors. Identity can serve both separation and disintegration. The authors of the monograph express an optimistic position. They believe that the integration role of identity is still stronger than the disintegration one. The proposed review illustrates the structure, the main content of the monograph and the most significant research results. The study is highly appreciated for its practical significance in modern conditions, when Russia is at the stage of civilization self-determination.

Short Stories in EFL: Transnational Identities, Feminist Solidarities, and the Response-able Close-Reading of Oyinkan Braithwaite’s “Treasure” and Lesley Arimah’s “Light”

Short Stories in EFL: Transnational Identities, Feminist Solidarities, and the Response-able Close-Reading of Oyinkan Braithwaite’s “Treasure” and Lesley Arimah’s “Light”

Woman, here and there: Transnational struggles of Nazneen in Brick Lane by Monica Ali and Christine in Hot Water Man by Deborah Moggach

Paralleling globalisation, wars, social and economic insecurities, and the desire for a better life push people to cross those borders. The case of postcolonial migration between the former colonies and Great Britain tells a different story of border crossing. Although the physical borders are open for the newcomer, the psychological and social borders are hard to cross. In this regard, the migrants manage to cross these unseen borders through their fluid transnational identities. This fluidity enables them to carry on their background while passing the other side. However, it is clear that the experiences of the migrant as a woman are far more different and precarious. In Brick Lane, Monica Ali depicts the lives of migrant Bangladeshi women who live in Brick Lane, London, and provides versatile pictures of different experiences. Nazneen is the main character, whose transnational identity helps to transgress the boundaries between the host culture and her origin. Throughout the novel, she transforms from a shy, insecure immigrant young girl to a strong and self-confident woman with a fluid transnational identity. On the other hand, in Hot Water Man, Deborah Moggach presents a reverse migration from Great Britain to Pakistan and depicts Christine’s struggle to cross borders and gain a transnational identity. Although they share the difficulties of being a woman in the host culture, their experiences differ because of their positions and the representation of their background as a former coloniser and colonised. This study aims to examine the experiences of these two women, Nazneen and Christine, while crossing the invisible borders in their journeys to gain transnational identities.

Visualizing Buddhism Today

Abstract Since Buddhism appeared around the fifth century BCE, it has established itself as a discipline that gives philosophical teachings to many people beyond religion. After the twentieth century, Buddhism has gone beyond being a representative ideology of the East and continues to be a social and cultural inspiration for many people worldwide. By focusing on the artworks of three Korean artists, Jeong Hwa Choi, Kimsooja, and Do Ho Suh, this study explores in detail how Buddhism inspires artists to visualize self-reflection and transnational identity and how traditional Buddhism contributes to the universalization, conceptualization, and communication of contemporary art. It also discusses how Buddhism is being reinterpreted and visualized by contemporary artists today, becoming a work of art for the public, not art for the few. Their artworks, inspired by Buddhism, show how contemporary art shows humanist, participatory, empathic, diverse, and global aspects and conveys multilayered messages.

Diaspora Mobilization and Identity Construction of Ukrainian Immigrants in Turkey: “Ukrainians Started to Become More Ukrainian”

Abstract The article analyzes the role of Ukrainian associations on construction of immigrant identity in Turkey at the intersection of diaspora politics and diaspora-lived experiences. Ukrainian immigrant associations – whose numbers and members rapidly increased after Russia’s annexation of Crimea – became critical players in immigrants’ ethno-national identity construction. This aligned with the Ukrainian government’s changing diaspora policy and shaped immigrants’ relationship with the homeland. The associations, therefore, facilitated diaspora activism from above and below. These associations are mainly engaged in activities related to the teaching of Ukrainian language, history, and culture so that immigrants can distinguish themselves from Russians and discover their own uniqueness. They also consider the migrant status of Ukrainians in Turkey and develop an awareness of ethno-national identity by negotiating transnational identities.

The UK’s role in shaping the anti-russian policy of The West

In the context of the Ukrainian crisis, Western countries have significantly intensified their anti-Russian policy along with its collective development. The article examines the role of the UK in the process of multilateral formation of the collective Western anti-Russian policy. The theoretical basis of the study is the spatial approach and organisational theory. Based on the analysis of institutional-identitarian dynamics using the qualitative and quantitative content analysis, the British foreign policy identity, the transnational identity of the political space of the West, and their mutual influence are explored. It is concluded that the anti-Russian aspects of the foreign policy narratives of the UK and the collective West generally coincide. However, there are features in the corresponding discourse in the UK, which bring it closer to the discourse of the countries of the Anglosphere. International institutions and practices with the participation of the UK are considered, their compliance with anti-Russian narratives is substantiated. The article reveals the directions of British foreign policy that have the most influence on the collective policy of the West. The study focuses on cases where the British leadership was the first to take certain anti-Russian measures, encouraging other countries to follow its example. The reverse impact of international institutions and practices on the British foreign policy identity was analysed. It is argued that the UK has a significant influence on the formation of a collective anti-Russian policy, and is one of the leaders of the West in this context.

The potential of transnational history education: Attempts at university teaching practice in East Asia

This essay explores transnational history education through the China–Korea–Japan CAMPUS Asia ENGAGE Program. Utilising active learning, project-based activities and joint history textbook creation, students navigate East Asia’s contested past. The approach encourages a shift from national to transnational identities, fostering a ‘global citizen’ perspective. By deconstructing conventional history narratives and constructing alternative, intersectional viewpoints, students develop a nuanced understanding that transcends divisive national boundaries. This pedagogical strategy underscores the potential of active learning in advocating global history perspectives for conflict resolution and reshaping historical memory.

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

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.

Exploring transnationality as a resource for promoting social justice in language teacher identity construction: Insights from an inquiry group

This study explored the transnational identities of six English language teachers in an Egyptian university context, using an identity-focused teacher inquiry group. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of identity as critical pedagogy, and transnationality as a disposition that can be cultivated, narrative analysis revealed insights into what a transnational disposition entails, and how teachers (can) draw on their transnationality as a resource for promoting social justice in their work. Specifically, three prominent themes emerged: the adoption of humanizing teaching approaches, the bridging of cultural divides, and the promotion of transformative teaching. Implications for pedagogizing language teacher identity are discussed.

“We are Not All Named Maria”: Building Transnational Identities in a United States International Baccalaureate High School

ABSTRACT In this study, we use discursive analytic tools to understand how transnational high school students in one suburban high school in the United States Pacific Northwest describe their social and academic experiences in school. The majority of the students from this study were born in the United States and therefore do not fit with the traditional, geographically based conception of transnational. However, we argue that they experience cultural, social, and linguistic transnationalism in a variety of ways, and that their alignment with these complex identities influences their day-to-day interactions in school. We examine how these youth used language to position themselves racially and linguistically relative to others in their school community, and the figured worlds they drew on in the process. We find that 15 students expressed the complexity of their experiences as both insiders and outsiders in this school, sometimes engaging—and other times rejecting— the identities others ascribed to them.

‘An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger): Passage to India’ – Exploring genealogy and roots tourism through documentary filmmaking

This article presents a documentary film produced and enacted by one of the authors as a way of knowing, constructing and representing a specific form of tourist consumption, namely genealogy tourism. The documentary ( https://vimeo.com/825001015?share=copy ), entitled ‘An Gorta Mor’ (Gaelic words that translate to ‘The Great Hunger’, the Irish famine that occurred from 1845 to 1852), functions as both a vehicle to produce and present the ethnographic fieldwork conducted by one of the authors to trace back his ancestral roots and the empirical material to be analysed. The documentary unveils two emergent themes. The first is that genealogy tourism involves multiple fluid places and transnational identities that question ‘fixed’ notions of ‘motherland’, ‘home’ and ‘family’. The second refers to roots tourism as a vehicle to propel bonding and bridging social capital. Methodologically, as a form of arts-based research, this work promotes embodied alternative ways of knowing tourist realities and selves.

The 2012 Tuareg-Arab Uprising in Northern Mali and Regional Actors: The Impact of Libya and Algeria

Despite the peace agreement signed in Algeria in 2015, the Tuareg-Arab uprising in northern Mali is still one of the main conflicts that threaten security and stability in the Sahel. Regional actors played an undeniable role both in the development of the crisis and in the solution attempts. For this reason, this article aims to examine the development of the crisis that started in Mali in 2012 and continues today through the regional policies of Libya and Algeria. The fact that many Tuareg tribes lived in the southern cities of both countries caused them to be closely involved in the crisis in Mali and to be involved in the process. Muammar Gaddafi, the former leader of Libya, has been the biggest supporter of the Tuareg society within the framework of his pan-Africanist policies. The Tuareg youth who took refuge in Libya in the 1980s not only returned to their country and started the 1990 uprising, but also laid the foundations for the 2012 uprising. As the spiritual father of Tuaregs, Gaddafi's sudden death in 2011 is also cited as one of the main reasons for the 2012 rebellion in northern Mali. On the other hand, Algeria, which has a large Tuareg population in its southern cities, acted as a mediator not only in the 2012 uprising but also in the uprisings in Mali since the 1960s . They hosted the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in Mali in 2015. This article is important in that it examines Maghreb-Sahel relations from a regional perspective, which cannot find enough space in the literature where existing studies on the crisis mostly focus on international actors. By evaluating transnational identities, minority issues and regional migration from a postcolonial perspective in supplement to political mobilization and regional security issues around the Mali crisis, this paper will provide a comprehensive understanding of the region.

Transnationalism and caring for vulnerable-status, migrant women and their families during pregnancy and early-childhood

Migrants commonly maintain transnational ties with their home country including identities, attachments, and social, cultural, economic and service/care interactions. Significant gaps remain regarding care-providers’ perspectives on migrants’ transnational ties and whether and how these ties are addressed in the context of care. La Maison Bleue (LMB) is a community-based social perinatal care service with four sites in Montreal, Canada, providing health and social care to families in vulnerable contexts from pregnancy up until age five. We conducted a small, qualitative descriptive study and interviewed 7 care-providers (nursing, social work, family medicine, psycho-education) and 3 administrators/support personnel from LMB to gather data on their experiences and perspectives on “transnationalism” in care with vulnerable-status migrant women and their families. Transnational identity (language, culture, attachment to the home country), and ongoing connections with back home, including communication with children and extended family, remittent sending, and the receipt of child-rearing and health advice, commonly arise within care interactions. Fostering transnational relationships and cultural identity are strategies used by LMB care-providers to strengthen migrant families’ sense of belonging and to help them cope with losses, while addressing transnational tensions and stresses are used to promote families’ well-being and integration. This involves a combination of listening, humility, remaining open, providing information and delivering care that is respectful of culture and sensitive to families’ situations. Cultural negotiation, directly with migrant families or via local peers, is sometimes used to overcome transnational cultural barriers related to health decisions and child-rearing. At times, care-providers also engage directly with family back home to mediate cross-border stresses and cultural tensions and/or to draw on them as a source of information and support. Care-providers view transnational cultural ties and relationships as both positive and negative for the well-being of families and with respect to its impact on interventions with families. Although not always feasible, care-providers believe it's important to know about families’ transnational contexts, in order to provide responsive, supportive care.

Immersive Intercultural Learning Experiences in High School: Reflections From Independent School Alumni

Many educators are considering ways to increase student intercultural competence and support student identity development as they seek to create more inclusive and equitable schools and contribute to more just societies. This study provides analysis of one type of learning experience intentionally designed around intercultural engagement—independent high school programs that immerse students in international contexts for short-term learning experiences. This mixed-method study included 191 young alumni from six different independent schools in North America and focused on better understanding how these learning experiences have lived with their participants over time. Due in part to adolescent neuroplasticity, the study demonstrates that intercultural experiences that immerse students in relational learning beyond their home culture can influence them over time, including in their intercultural and identity development. The study specifically demonstrates that participants self-report continued influence of the program on their intercultural communication and perspective-taking skills and behavior frequency. The study identified two areas of limitations, namely that participants reported a conflicted or negative response to community service-focused programs over time and that participants with a transnational identity reported limited influence. These limitations and the participant reflections on the importance of relational learning suggest a dialectic approach as an effective way to reach the full potential of immersive learning for adolescents. Educators who strive to teach essential intercultural competencies that support school or districtwide efforts to create more inclusive and equitable school cultures might gain insights from this study's findings on the power of relational intercultural engagement for student learning.

Nomadic Sisters: Migrant Identity in Joanna Bator’s Cloudalia and Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo

The article provides a comparative analysis of Joanna Bator’s Cloudalia and Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo with regard to similar identity construction of the main female characters. Both authors concentrate on young women (Dominika Chmura in Cloudalia and Celaya Reyes in Caramelo) who set out for a journey of feminist self-discovery, crossing the boundaries of geography, history and culture. The author of the article argues that, despite the obvious differences between Poland and Mexico, the protagonists rebel against the same legacy of the Catholic patriarchal culture, reinforced by national visions of history and literary canon in the respective countries, and they gradually manage to rework historical trauma by reconstructing the doppelganger figure and creating new transcultural feminist paradigms. The arguments are reinforced not only by references to autobiographical motives in Bator’s and Cisneros’ fiction and diaries, but also by transnational identity studies of Zygmunt Bauman and Amaryll Chanady.