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:	9781785333590
Publisher:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/01/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	302
File size:	4 MB

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.

Hannah Davis Taïeb has a Phd in anthropology from New York University. She is an independent international educator teaching community engagement and intercultural communication in Paris. She was Resident Director at CIEE-Paris from 2003 to 2015.

Table of Contents

List of Tables

Preface
Michael Woolf

Acknowledgements

PART I: INTRODUCTION

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

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

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

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

Chapter 5. Thinking through the Romance
Hannah Davis Taïeb, with Emily Bihl, Mai-Linh Bui, Hyojung Kim, and Kaitlin Rosenblum

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

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

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

Chapter 9. “People with Pants”: Self-Perceptions of WorldTeach Volunteers in the Marshall Islands
Ruochen Richard Li

Conclusion
Hannah Davis Taïeb and Neriko Musha Doerr

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

Index

Editorial Reviews

"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

EBOOK COMMENTARY

"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