The Romance of Crossing Borders: Studying and Volunteering Abroad

by Neriko Musha Doerr (Editor), Hannah Davis Taïeb (Editor)

Overview

What draws people to study abroad or volunteer in far-off communities? Often the answer is romance – the romance of landscapes, people, languages, the very sense of border-crossing – and longing for liberation, attraction to the unknown, yearning to make a difference. This volume explores the complicated and often fraught desires to study and volunteer abroad. In doing so, the book sheds light on how affect is managed by educators and mobilized by students and volunteers themselves, and how these structures of feeling relate to broader social and economic forces.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785333583
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	01/01/2017
Pages:	302
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Neriko Musha Doerr received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Cornell University. She currently teaches at Ramapo College, U.S.A.

Table of Contents

List of Tables ix

Preface: The Romance of Study Abroad Michael Woolf x

Acknowledgements xvi

Part I Introduction

Chapter 1 Affect and Romance in Study and Volunteer Abroad: Introducing our Project Neriko Musha Doerr Hannah Davis Taïeb 3

Chapter 2 Study Abroad and Its Reasons: A Critical Overview of the Field Hannah Davis Taïeb Neriko Musha Doerr 35

Part II Studying with(out) Passion: Study Abroad and Affect

Chapter 3 Passionate Displacements into Other Tongues and Towns: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Shifting into a Second Language Karen Rodriguez 69

Chapter 4 Sojourn to the Dark Continent: Landscape and Affect in an African Mobility Experience Bradley Rink 93

Chapter 5 Thinking Through the Romance Hannah Davis Taïeb Emily Bihl Mai-Linh Bui Hyojung Kim Kaitlin Rosenblum 114

Chapter 6 Falling In/Out of Love with the Place: Affective Investment Perceptions of Difference, and Learning in Study Abroad Neriko Musha Doerr 139

Chapter 7 Learning Japanese/Japan in a Year Abroad in Kyoto: Discourse of Study Abroad, Emotions, and Construction of Self Yuri Kumagai 166

Part III Serving with Passion: Romantic Images of Self and Other in Volunteering Abroad

Chapter 8 One Smile, One Hug: Romanticizing "Making a Difference" to Oneself and Others through English-Language Voluntourism Cori Jakubiak 195

Chapter 9 "People with Pants": Self-Perceptions of WorldTeach Volunteers in the Marshall Islands Ruochen Richard Li 220

Conclusion Hannah Davis Taïeb Neriko Musha Doerr 251

Student Photo Essay Morgan Greer Lee-Anna John Richard Suarez Carla Villacís 276

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

“Overall, this edited volume illustrates the complexities of affective encounters as students and young volunteers cross borders and engage with cultural diversity. Important is the relevance of understanding, studying, and acknowledging how affect impacts subject-making as students travel. There are also important insights that allow practitioners, teachers and programme co-ordinators to think strategically about how to better direct or address affective encounters in more meaningful and productive ways.” • Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI)

“The volume provides us with some valuable insights … as an increasing number, if still a minority, of students take up opportunities to spend some of their education in a stay abroad. This book should, therefore, be particularly useful for students and professionals in the fields of mobility studies, international education and education more broadly.” • Anthropological Forum

“This volume offers an exciting focus for scholarship, and one that definitely speaks to a growing area of interest in, and support for, study abroad as a necessary component of an undergraduate academic career… It offers tools for careful critique and consideration for study abroad at a moment when such tools are valuable and increasingly necessary.” • John Bodinger de Uriarte, Susquehanna University

From the Publisher