EVENT:
  Asian Studies Seminar Series
  - ‘Becoming Asian’: Processes of westernization and cosmopolitanization at an international school in Indonesia
		
Fri, 01 Nov 2013 13:30 - Seminar room G.25, Social Sciences North
		
Ms Danau Tanu
Young people at international schools (who are often referred to as
Third Culture Kids) are expected to be “international” and open to
difference by virtue of their education and transnational upbringing.
However, the processes involved in becoming “international” are
fraught with tensions because they are embedded within national and
global structures of power. This paper interrogates the ways in which
issues of culture, “race” and class intersect and influence the
experiences and identities of Asian students at an international high
school in Indonesia. As contradictory as it may seem, some Asian
students who were more Westernized than others tended to identify more
as “Asian”. For some, becoming more Korean or Japanese was mutually
constitutive with becoming Asian, becoming Western, and becoming
international. This paper argues that becoming Asian is an expression of
mutual intelligibility forged across difference that develops within
transnational social spaces like that of the international school.
However, international schools fail to recognize becoming Asian as
cosmopolitan practice because their Eurocentric focus overlooks the
diversity of cosmopolitan practices that emerge out of the cultural
inequalities present in transnational social spaces.  Data are drawn
from a yearlong ethnographic research that I carried out a in 2009,
consisting mainly of participant-observation of high school students
(grades 9 to 12) at an international school catering to foreign
expatriate and upper-middle class Indonesian families. I also conducted
in-depth interviews with over a hundred and thirty students, school
staff, parents, and alumni.


		
For more information:
  Karen Eichorn
  karen.eichorn@uwa.edu.au
  64883448

Starts       : Fri, 01 Nov 2013 13:30
Ends         : Fri, 01 Nov 2013 15:00
		
Last Updated : Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:53