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