Cultural Transit

Pause.

2005-05-22T09:19:00.000+02:00

It has come to my attention that people have begun reading this journal, and so I thought I'd apologise for having suddenly stopped writing a week ago. I haven't been advertising it since I didn't know if I would keep it up, and I must admit that the way things look right now, I won't be able to update you before the 1st of June at the very earliest...

See, my thesis is to be handed in then, and although blogwriting certainly helped me structure my ideas and pushed me to keep writing and finishing off drafts to get them published up here, now I'm getting to the work which is really tricky... getting it all to fit together into a neat, crisp thesis.

I will keep you updated later though... but apologies until then :)

Survey Results 6d: Online Purchasing

2005-05-16T15:18:00.000+02:00

A high amount of online purchasing of material objects was expected among TCKs. It is expected that commodities not available (or difficult to find) in Denmark would be purchased on the web, e.g. foreign music and pop-cultural artifacts particular in foreign countries.

The results show that all the respondents have tried purchasing things online, thus web trust is not a major issue. However, Natalie and Manuel mention that they are wary with purchasing things from websites outside of Denmark as they don’t feel that the websites in their host countries are safe enough. Manuel also submits that web purchasing hasn’t broken through in his host country yet, thus making it difficult for now.

The respondents mentioned purchasing the following items online:

• Flight tickets (8 respondents)
• Books (7 respondents)
• Computer hardware and software (expected, 6 respondents)
• DVDs, CDs (4 respondents)
• Cultural activities (movie tickets, concert tickets, hotel booking) (3 respondents)
• Mobile Phone Units
• Memberships
• Gift vouchers
• Clothes
• Medicine

The items purchased are generally bought for the reason that they are often cheaper on the Internet than elsewhere – a fact which is especially expected among a sample of mostly student respondents. Equally expected was the purchase of computer hard- and software and electronics among so many students of technology.

The purchasing of CDs and DVDs was lower than expected. Manuel explains that he travels often enough to buy them in “real shops”, and in general likes the tactile sensation of buying them there.

In general however, purchasing items from abroad isn’t practiced much at all, and especially not for the reason of "getting in touch with past homes" – Natalie admits that her clothes purchases have only been of the brand H&M – a brand very much omnipresent in most of Europe and especially in Denmark. The fact that she has seen it in real life, and that she knows the sizes, make it easy for her to buy something from that particular chain of clothes.

Survey Results 6c: News

2005-05-16T15:16:00.000+02:00

All of the respondents check up on the news at least every couple of days. Five individuals check it many times a day, five check it at least once a day, and five check it every couple of days. Barbara refers to herself as a news-addict, and expresses that she finds it important to get a nuanced and diverse image of what is going on in the world. She is mostly interested in world news, and makes an effort in reading up on the same issue from many different points of view – she daily visits websites from Denmark, Germany, BBC and CNN.

Reasons why news websites are preferred to other media are that there is always access to them, that one can go directly to the article in which they are interested in, and that they make it possible to see an issue from the points of view of many different countries. Besides Barbara, the importance for this is also expressed by Abira, Nikolaj, Dan, Manuel and Giovanni. The high proficiency in languages is of course an important prerequisite for this to occur.

The most popular medium for news is, however, still TV. Natalie explains that it is the easiest just to sit back and relax in the evening and let the news come to her rather than have to look for it actively.

The rest of the respondents read or watch world or international news, while just six are interested in local or national news. Five are interested in reading about culture (music, books, events), equally five are interested in politics, nine are interested in science and technology, two are interested in finance.

While some admit to watching the news on the two main Danish channels (DR1 and TV2), many will regularly visit CNN or BBC for news updates on current events.

Survey Results 6b: Chat, Online Communities and Personal Websites

2005-05-14T23:45:00.000+02:00

The need to interact with the international environment articulated by most of the respondents could be expected to lead Danish ATCKs in the pursuit of other TCKs abroad, or participating in an online TCK community.

Twelve out of 16 respond that they chat, two used to but don't any longer (Katrine and Giovanni), and two (Barbara and David) don't chat at all. Barbara reasons this with the fact that she has plenty of social contact in her every day life, and has no need for further interaction. David on the other hand, mentions that in his case he always needs to plan this beforehand, which is difficult especially when he has no internet access at home or work.

Those who do chat predominantly do so with people they already know from face-to-face settings. Seven responded that they mainly chatted with people who lived far away or abroad, while three mostly chat with people who live close by. The remaining three mention that they chat equally with people close by as people abroad.

The survey shows that chat occurs predominantly with existing relations, and that generally, there is very little interaction with strangers. The same tendency is apparent when enquiring into participation in online communities or fora – most do not feel the need to participate, while those who do participate in for a, predominantly visit those with the purpose of information exchange rather than relationship building.

A quick exploration of the web reveals that there are in fact online communities created for the purpose of TCK interaction – Orkut has two communities, one named Third Culture Kids, and the related community Global Nomads, inhabited by mostly the same individuals. However, the participation level is extremely low, Third Culture Kids was created in February 2004, and 44 posts in total, the last one from December 2004. Global Nomads was also created in February 2004, but hold only 24 posts in total, the last also from December.). It is possible however, that the members participating in these communities interact privately.

The Global Nomad Virtual Village, which was founded in 1998, writes as its vision:

“The Global Nomad Virtual Village (GNVV) is an internet-based, non-profit, organization; a virtual hub or virtual village, that provides global nomads, third culture kids, Foreign Service dependents, military brats, (basically anyone who shares the common bond of growing up in a foreign land)... a permanent "place" to keep in touch."

Contact information or a forum however, is nowhere to be seen on the website, neither are mailing lists. “Military brats” - children who have been brought up in military bases outside the USA have an online home at http://brats.meetup.com/. The site features a message board, a photo album and announcements of arranged meetings real life meetings for the military brats. While meetings have been arranged since October 2003, there are no photos nor are there any postings on the message board. MK connection doesn’t offer a forum, but links to stories and poetry written by former missionary kids who have grown up as TCKs. Finally, the Danish TCK organisation DUO’s website reports that it has been at a standstill since 2002.

While chatting for meeting others isn’t practiced much among TCKs, it is still a valuable and important tool for keeping up pre-existing networks. In the same way as SMS messages, short conversations are important to the respondents, making it possible for a constant bond. Natalie mentions a website which she keeps with three friends from high school, mostly used for sharing pictures. Dan and Katrine each own a family website, used for internal communication in the family only.

Survey Results 6a: Communication

2005-05-14T21:30:00.000+02:00

It is difficult to say that there are any trends in terms of preferred CMC technologies for interpersonal communication. And of course, personal preferences do play a big role here, and often the follow-up interviews have given a clearer picture of preference trends than mere box-ticking does. The respondents were asked how they preferred to communicate with 1) strangers, for formal purposes 2) family and relatives near and far, 3) friends, close by or abroad.

The following were the results:

	Regular Mail	Phone	Email	Chat	Webcam
Formal communication with people close by	-	8	8	-	-
Formal communication with people abroad	1	2	13	-	-
With family and relatives close by	-	11	-	2	-
With family and relatives abroad	-	11	3	3	1
Friends close by	-	8	1	6	-
Friends abroad	-	1	10	6	-

It is not so surprising that the more traditional media was preferred when communicating with family and relatives, compared to friends. This undoubtedly has to do with the age gap - Barbara, 44, would find it very unnatural to contact her parents in any other way than over the phone - "they would be insulted!". David, who chats with his family members nearby, admits that this is because the only family member in his vicinity is his one year older sister.

However, when communicating with family abroad, although the phone is by far still the preferred medium, we see a couple more instances of chatting, including Natalie who speaks to her family in Canada over the webcam.

With friends however, although the phone is still preferred to other media, the tendency of communication through chatting is emerging (Chatting will be dealt with in more detail in a later post). Follow-up interviews highlighted that much communication with friends over the phone actually takes place via SMS (text messaging), indicating then that communication style as well as medium is different depending on who they communicate with. Generally, while communication with family members occurs perhaps once a week, but perhaps for an hour or so, communication among peers is rather a session of punctuating the every day lives of Danish TCKs. Natalie explains how happy she gets when she receives SMSes from a high school friend, currently living in Australia. Her friend mentioned that he was eating Korean food, and thought he'd mention to Natalie how it reminded him of the "good times". By consequence, Natalie opened up Google to search for Korean recipes. Something, she says, wouldn't have happened if she hadn't had the Internet.

Although space and time friction has been minimised over the advent of the Internet, these are still a hurdle. David and Britta both mention that chatting with individuals abroad is difficult because one must first make arrangements for a time in which to call - often resulting in their forgetting the appointments or having to turn on the Internet at odd times. Once chatting though, Britta states she usually doesn't think about the time difference, unless it is expressed by the interlocutor. For the respondents in general, chat sessions with friends happen impulsively and sporadically, and interaction with friends overseas is squeezed in naturally between chores or during work breaks.

For some, such as in Abira's case, interaction with friends and acquaintances abroad is so pervasive in their lives that they feel their lives are still spent abroad rather than in Copenhagen. An avid skype user, she is on the web based telephone to Israel "constantly".

I was surprised to see so little webcam usage however. Only Natalie mentions that she owns a webcam, while Abira and Manuel chat with others who own one, although they don't own one themselves. Abira is pleased with being able to see her friends and their families when she chats with them, and expects to buy a webcam herself soon. Manuel on the other hand, doesn't see the need - webcams are useless when chatting, as the chatting counterpart "is always just staring down at the keyboard".

Yet, Natalie and Abira enjoy being able to see their friends' new haircuts, their children, and basically, it serves well as a substitute for meeting in real life. Natalie adds that she hasn't seen her family in Canada for at least two years.

(Please note that all the respondents' names have been changed.)

Survey Results 6: Media Use

2005-05-14T17:39:00.000+02:00

The last results from the survey are central to this thesis, and are also very comprehensive. For this reason, this post will have to be divided up into many more posts, which will be dealing with the following subjects:

a) Communication

b) Chat, Online Communities and Personal Websites

c) News

d) Online Purchasing

However, here's a little media use background for Danish TCKs in general:

Internet Access
13 individuals access the internet from home. Six also access the internet from school or work, and one person only has access from work (this is due to having recently moved house.) Finally, David only has internet access from friends' houses and webcafés.

Internet Skills
12 respondents pay their bills through the web, expressing therefore a good level of trust in the web. As we shall see, this is underpinned by the fact that all of the respondents have tried purchasing something online. Ten individuals are able to create simple webpages, and finally, six respondents are able to construct complex websites or do computer programming. These data are mainly useful with regard to getting a general idea of the web skills that the respondents have, and to give a good indication of why some do not, for instance, have a personal website (the answer therefore possibly being that they do not have the skills for this.)

Internet Experience
The respondents have had between 5 and 10 years of experience with the Internet, with an average of 8.3. We can therefore comfortably say that this sample of respondents are not novices of Internet.

Survey Results 5: Cultural Identity

2005-05-13T15:10:00.000+02:00

Stuart Hall has submitted that the future is equally as important in cultural identity construction as both the past and the present. The question posed to the respondents about the importance on which they place on their (future) partner or spouse having a multicultural background can be assumed to be indicative of what the TCK expects from his or her future.

Importance of multicultural background of partner
Just two individuals found it very important that their future spouse had a multicultural background like themselves, while another five consider it quite important. Those who look for multiculturality in their partner submit that what is important to them is a mutual frame of reference, in order to understand where the other is coming from. Barbara, for instance, has been married twice to mono-cultural men, but only when she met her third husband, with the same multi-cultural background as her own, did she finally feel that she had met the right person.

Many mention that it is important to them with regard to practical reasons – those who expect to move abroad in the future find that it is important that their partner will understand this wish, and especially be able to adjust to a new culture. In addition, Manuel mentions that it is important to him that his children learn at least two languages while growing up, submitting that this will be important if they are to cope career-wise in the future.

Those who find that a multicultural background is irrelevant (7), not surprisingly mention that “soul mates are better”, and that a multi-cultural background is not a prerequisite for character traits that really matter to them, such as a good sense of humour, and that essentially, love happens regardless of backgrounds. The values that a mono-cultural person has, no matter where he or she is from, are equally as valid as those of a multi-cultural person.

However, what does matter is a tolerance and respect towards other cultures, a trait which is equally found among mono-cultural as multi-cultural people.

Personal Cultural Identity
In terms of their own cultural identity, only Katrine and Dan regard themselves as Danish. Interestingly, Katrine is also the only person in the sample who has yet to move back to Denmark. Dan, on the other hand, expresses that while this is a difficult question, he has then adopted "Danish" as his cultural label, having his typically Scandinavian looks playing a big part in this decision. Being able to describe a label to someone is important he says, so as to facilitate communication. A national label, then, gives strangers a starting reference in order to "figure you out".

Many express difficulty in answering this question, explaining that they are confused and split between nationalities. Some describe their cultural identity in terms of percentages (50% this, 30% that and the remaining 20% a third nationality.) Natalie, Line, Jonas and Davis however, seem to have a clear understanding of themselves as belonging to a third culture. Natalie expresses that she is a citizen of the world, Line describes herself in terms of broadened horizons and easily adaptive to different situations. Jonas defines himself as a global hybrid, whereas David describes his background as that of the international school and everything that the international school culture entails - in particular the high cultural diversity among the pupils.

Influences on cultural identity include:

Friends (7 responses)

Living and traveling abroad (6)

Cultural experiences while growing up (5),
(including growing up with other people from all over the world (2))

Upbringing, parents and family (5)

School and/or work (5)

Social activities (3)

Languages

Literature, music, food

Religion, history, heritage, news, politics, economics

Self-perception

Looks

Besides the culture which one’s own parents have brought one up with, central elements in identity construction are interaction with individuals from other cultures and experiencing other cultures especially through childhood. Religion, history and heritage have a low occurrence in influence, while communication, especially interaction is regarded very highly as a cultural influence.

TCK identification
In terms of relating to the TCK definition, just Britta and Mette responded that they did not identify with it at all. Britta explains that she in fact feels more attracted to people who have had a monocultural background, very much due to the fact that she found them much more interesting than those with the same background. However, she adds, her husband has in fact traveled a lot during childhood. Mette chose not to comment on her answer.

Six respondents completely identified themselves with the definition, four respondents mostly did, and four partially did. Hannah, who completely identified herself with this definition, felt that non-TCKs would never completely understand her – Natalie concurred. Katrine, who mostly identifies with this definition concurs with Britta that she finds mono-cultural people equally as fascinating as TCKs. Line submits that while TCKs relate to each other easier, if non-TCKs are open-minded enough and are willing to try and understand the TCK background, then they can relate to each other as well.

Survey Results 4: International Contact

2005-05-13T14:10:00.000+02:00

This series serves to gain an understanding of the relationship between the respondent and the level of international contact that the individual has had growing up and the importance of it today.

International contact growing up
Growing up, 11 respondents had frequented an International School. 9 respondents frequented Danes Worldwide Summerschool, in which Danish children living in countries all over the world were collected in Denmark and taught Danish language and culture. Finally, a couple mentioned frequenting the Danish churches, Scandinavian communities and international clubs.

International contact today
Today, two respondents answer that keeping contact with the international environment is not very important. The reasons for this is explained by a very strong connection to the Danish society, and expressing a wish for living the mono-cultural life - the idea of engaging in international societies seems unappealing in comparison to complete immersion into a culture.

Eight respond that international contact is quite important while five responded that contact to the international environment is very important. One was undecided, and no one felt that it wasn't important at all. Those who found it" quite important" or "very important", frequently explained that it was a part of their identities. A couple mentioned the importance of keeping up-to-date with international affairs, to keep learning and keeping an open mind. Finally, some answered that they kept in touch with the international environment "for the fun of it".

All of the individuals who found it to be very important to maintain contact with the international environment also wish they had more international contact today.

Fulfilling the need for international contact
To fulfill the need for international contact, 5 individuals specifically mentioned web-related activities: emailing, surfing and chatting. Other activities mentioned were "travelling", working for NGOs promoting intercultural exchange such as IAESTE, volunteering as a "buddy" - entailing helping out exchange students. In general, interaction both with friends abroad and strangers is important in order to maintain contact with the international environment.

The maintenance of international contact is, obviously, dependent on whether one finds it important. There does, however, seem to be a trend that individuals eventually settle down in a community and feel satiated with regards to international contact. The ages for this change, but I suspect that the way they envision their future may have something to do with it.

Survey Results 3: Geographical Connections

2005-05-12T18:56:00.000+02:00

12 respondents out of 16 have lived in two or more countries excluding Denmark during their developmental years, representing between them a total of 30 countries. The countries in which they have lived represent all of the world's continents, and include: Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Libya, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunesia, USA and Venezuela.

The large number of different countries of course means that the TCK sample cannot be said to be homogenic in terms of geographical connections. However, this is exactly what is also characteristic of TCKs - that they are highly mobile and experience very diverse cultures throughout their lives, and especially the fact that their network is thinly spread all over the world. If we were to only study the children who are, say, Danish but brought up in Italy, we would in fact be studying the Danish diaspora in Italy rather than the Danish TCK network, and the results would then be expected to be different. (See the following post for an in-depth description of the differences between TCKs and Diasporas).

Three of the respondents are currently living in countries outside of Denmark, 2 have already lived in Denmark and have then moved on, one has yet to live in Denmark, but expects to return to Denmark eventually to finish her studies. Ten of the respondents mentioned their return to Denmark as being due to education, either to go to boarding school or to begin university studies. It is perhaps worth noting here, that education is free in Denmark, and may have a heavy influence on decisions regarding where to take further education. Unless their parents are still living in childhood host countries, the respondents seldom go back there. This, they explain, is usually because they don't know anyone there any more - the others with whom they spent their childhood with have also either returned to their passport countries or moved on.

The above underpins the idea that Adams and Ghose submit in their article "India.com - the construction of a space between"- that places are topologies of people. Once one's friends and family move away from there, the physical place no longer has the same importance to the TCK. Home, they say, is often equated with wherever they have their daily lives at the current moment, or in connection with their loved ones - partners, children or parents, or finally, home is defined as the country in which the TCK has spent the most time.

Moving in the future?
12 of the respondents have no clear idea as to where they expect to live in the future, but do see themselves moving abroad at a point later on in life. The most common factors which are expected to have influence on where they expect to go are career-related. Some, who have lived in Denmark for many years, have established families and a relationship to the community, and expect to remain in Denmark for this reason.

Survey Results 2: Languages

2005-05-12T17:10:00.000+02:00

To learn a new language is to gain a new soul
- Czech Proverb

Being multicultural is regularly tied to being multilingual (Leontovich, 2003). It is not surprising to see that all of the TCKs featured in my sample of 16 respondents speak at least two languages (all English and Danish), eleven of whom speak three languages or more.

Mother Tongue
What I find more interesting however, is the respondents' designation of their mother tongue. Danish was chosen as the mother tongue among five respondents, Spanish and Italian was chosen by one respondent each, while four individuals designate English as their mother tongue. Interestingly however, 3 of the respondents who chose English as they mother tongue neither have parents from an English speaking country, nor have they been brought up in a country where English is the official language. According to follow up interviews with two out of three of these respondents, this is mainly due to the fact that their parents of different nationalities chose English as their lingua franca, and thus bring up their children in English alongside their other native languages. In addition, four individuals are split between Danish and English being their mother tongue, three of them in spite of their parents both being from either Denmark or Nordic cultures. One of these respondents notes that when he thinks, he thinks in English, and so for some, the language in which you think is also your mother tongue.

Another respondent, who sees his mother tongue as being equally English, Danish and French, concurs by submitting that your mother tongue is the language which you count in. However, this fluctuates according to context - who he's with, where he is and how long he's been there for.

English as a Third Culture Language?
Everyday life in international settings, and especially in international schools - in which classes are usually in English - is bound to have it's influence on one's cultural identity, in particular when the time spent in school exceeds the time spent at home in waking hours.

The occurrence of English as a common language has been expected for a while now. Research has already shown that English is becoming an increasingly integral part of language in many countries, and especially so in the context of media. For instance, a study conducted by Mercedes Durham on the emergence of a Pan-Swiss English as the chosen language between the German, French and Italian populations in mailing lists further supports this tendency. Meanwhile, Swedish youngsters are increasingly incorporating English in text messages conversations. (Hård Af Segerstad, in CATaC 2002 proceedings).

There is obviously a long way between using English occasionally in text messages, and assuming it as a mother tongue. But it is an interesting trend nonetheless.

Survey Results 1: Demographic Details

2005-05-12T15:47:00.000+02:00

Gender
Interestingly, and somewhat surprisingly, the respondents of my questionnaire were equally male (8) and female (8) - even before sorting the TCKs out from the total number of responses. I had initially expected more males since I knowingly sent out to students of IT and engineering, mainly to ensure that my respondents would have some experience with IT, and also because these individuals are those who are ascribed in my own immediate social circle (yes, I am surrounded by geeks :) ). There's a majority of students in the sample, amounting to 11 out of 16.

Social Class
Having expected a large amount of students responding to my survey, I decided to try and get some inkling of their social class in terms of their parents' professions. However, I found it to be most ethically correct to leave this question optional, leading to 5 non-responses. Of the rest of the answers, there is a majority tending towards professions of high education, including doctors, journalists, managers and geophysicists. All respondents to this question (11) had working parents but one, whose mother is a housewife.

Citizenship
Six of the respondents had dual citizenship, one of which was Danish (as was required as one of the qualifications to be regarded as a Danish TCK). Nine of the respondents had parents of differing cultures, at least 3 of which were themselves bi-cultural. 12 respondents had at least one parent living outside of Denmark, 4 respondents had both their parents living in Denmark.

Age
The average age is 27, ranging from 19 to 44. However, only 3 respondents were above 30 years of age. Thus, many of these respondents are at an age in which the Internet was only a part of their adult or nearly-adult lives. Thus we can understand these individuals as traditional TCKs, that is, as having had no or little influence from the Internet in their identity construction process.

The Survey

2005-05-12T14:13:00.000+02:00

The questionnaires were first pilot tested by four friends of mine, and were then sent on to their friends, in accordance with the snowball sampling technique.

The initial survey consists of online questionnaires of 45 - 50 questions (dependent on how they answered individual questions), divided into 7 sessions:

SESSION 1: Demographic Details

SESSION 2: Languages

SESSION 3: Geographical Connections

SESSION 4: International Environment

SESSION 5: Cultural Identity

SESSION 6: Media Use

SESSION 7: Finishing Questions

The first session deals with things like name, age, profession and that kind of thing, mainly to provide me with some insight on the homogeny of the group that I'm studying.

The second session merely looks into which and how many languages the individuals speak, as well as which is their mother tongue. I expect their answers to give interesting clues in terms of where they feel that they belong.

Session three deals with where they have lived, and where they expect to live in the future, as well as what they think influences their decisions.

The fourth session deals with engagement in international communities and environments, both growing up and as adults.

The fifth session includes the questions most central to this survey - how do they define their cultural identity, what do they think influences it, and where would they define 'home'? These questions were all open ended.

Session six contains a bunch of closed questions, looking into their use of different media. The open-ended questions mostly enquire into the "why"s and "why not"s of their media use.

The last questions are merely practical - the respondent is asked to choose a level of anonymity, and is asked to provide with any contacts whom they think may fit the right profile.

Future posts will deal with the results in each session. However, due to confidentiality reasons, quotes from the respondents will be shown in the final thesis.

Initial Methodological Considerations

2005-05-12T12:48:00.000+02:00

First, a quick reminder:

The aim of this research is to explore how ATCKs use the Internet in order to take or maintain contact with the cultures in which they were brought up.

In order to do this, I adopted a qualitative approach, using first questionnaires and later follow-up interviews. Since the recruitment of TCKs could prove difficult, I opted to call for multi-cultural individuals, and then manually sorting through the responses to sort out the individuals who fit the TCK profile. To further heighten my chances of finding individuals who fit the TCK profile, I opted for the snowball sampling technique. Here, the researcher relies on a qualified respondent to refer to other individuals with the same characteristics, who may then refer to the next and so on. This method is used for locating hidden populations, or social networks with a rare characteristic. One should of course keep in mind that there is a high possibility of bias among the collected respondents, however it is held that although the snowball sampling technique cannot be said to represent a whole population, it can represent a social network.

In this research, the individuals who qualified as matching the Danish TCK profile had to fulfill the following:

The individual must have lived at least two years in a country outside of Denmark.

The years abroad must have been spent during the developmental years. These were designated to be between 5 and 18, the school years.

The individual must hold Danish citizenship

The individual must finally express some affinity with a third culture, for instance through a deep internalisation of at least two cultures, involvement in international activities as children etc.

The number of individuals who matched the TCK profiles amounted to a total of 16, (8 female, 8 male). Of these, 8 were chosen to be interviewed subject to availability in the span of 3 weeks set aside for interviews.

The requirement of the respondents being Danish TCKs explicitly is due to the fact that although TCKs in general would be expected to be the same in many ways, (hence the definition,)regardless of their passport countries, Vicki Lambiri still draws attention to the fact that this is an issue that still needs to be researched (Lambiri, 2005). It is expected that Danish TCKs would be very much like American TCKs (who have been the subjects of the vast majority of TCK studies so far). Some evidence that there may be a difference between cultures may be the fact that of the 5 Icelandic TCKs, none of them had involved in international environments as children, whereas 12 of the Danish TCKs had gone to international schools and the rest at least to Danish summercamps. Attitude towards internationalisation may be different from culture to culture.

Motivation Behind this Research

2005-05-11T15:09:00.000+02:00

In order to remind myself why I ever decided this topic for an MSc thesis, but also in order to justify it to myself and the readers, I have decided to list the reasons why I find this interesting, as well as the more "proper" reasons why this research is in fact worth my time.

My main, personal motivation behind this thesis is probably to have an excuse to explore the body of research that there is on Third Culture Kids, and relating it to the current knowledge on the Internet as a globalising media.

Vicki Lambiri notes that there is still a lot of research to be done on TCKs. She recently wrote a list of the Top Eight Research Needs (pdf) to be done on TCKs. At the top of the list is "How is Technology impacting the TCK Experience?", including issues such as keeping in touch with friends abroad, the "cushioning" of returning to one's home country and finally the questions "What influence is the Internet having on the shaping of TCK identity? How will the use of the web help third culture kids understand the multiple cultures that connect them to their identity?". Although my study is related to adult TCKs rather than TCKs as children, it is pleasing to see that what I'm studying is in fact needed research.

Although this thesis sprung from a plain, elementary interest in TCKs and their use of the media, I also hope to understand what this means in terms of the Internet as a tool for intercultural understanding. I'll admit at the moment of writing this post I do not really know what I hope to find - but I guess I am hoping that by looking at how TCKs use the Internet to maintain contact with the international environment (assuming of course, that they do,) we will be able to discover the third spaces that are created in cyberspace, and thereby see the potentials in the tools provided by the Internet to mediate cultural cues, and eventually promote cultural understanding.

Charles Ess (yet unpublished) suggests that research begins to connect the post-colonial body of research with that of IT, and I would like to think that I am doing something like that.

Third Culture Kids

2005-05-11T10:49:00.000+02:00

What is fascinating about Third Culture Kids, is the challenge that they go through in their identity construction. By definition, a TCK is a person who

"has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture. (Pollock and Van Reken, 2001:19).

While adults may experience culture shock when they move to a foreign country, their background consisting of friends, language, and traditions has already been established. They thus already have one culture appointed as the framework which can influence the development of their identity as a whole. TCKs, however, interact intimately with two or more cultures, and their identity is in this way constructed by way of differing, often opposite cultural cues.

The definition continues:

"The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background." (Pollock and Van Reken, 2001:19).

The sense of belonging is therefore not anchored in a place, but in relationships. We might understand the last part of the above definition in terms of the othering process of TCKs as a form of "multi-cultural" versus "mono-cultural" individuals.

TCKs differ from immigrants in that they are expected to return to the home country - the country of the parents. Often this is done after high school graduation and it is this phase which I find the most interesting. While the TCK would find herself explaining her differences as being related to coming from a different country, when she re-enters her country of origin she is usually met with an unexpected sensation of her home country not feeling like home after all. It is often upon re-entry that she realises that she might belong somewhere in between the home country, and the host country(ies) in which she was brought up. It is also at this point, that the label "Third Culture Kid" is most useful to the adult TCK:

What ATCKs Can Do: Name Themselves and Their Experience
For many TCKs putting a name to their past - "I grew up as a third culture kid" - opens a new perspective on life. Discovering there are legitimate reasons for their life experiences and the resulting feelings not only helps them understand themselves better, it also normalizes the experience. Some, who have spent a lifetime thinking they're alone in their differentness, discover they have lived a normal life after all - at least normal for a TCK. (Pollock and Van Reken, 2001:271)

The need to find a label that suits oneself can thus be very liberating for a TCK, helping to overcome then the dilemma of deciding on one's home country, and thereby acknowledging and naming their Placeless Identity.

Most studies have been done on TCKs as children, however Ruth Useem did study what happened to TCKs when they became adults - i.e. ATCKs.

Past research on ATCKs indicates that although TCKs do eventually settle down in a community, "once one is a TCK, they are always a TCK" - they still have problems relating to their own ethnic group. They maintain that an international element in their lives is very important to them,

they work toward that goal by keeping international touches in their homes, welcoming opportunities to meet foreigners, and keeping informed on the places they lived abroad.(Useem, 1993)

In what ways does the Internet help ATCKs keep in touch with the international environment?

(See also the earlier post entitled "Children of Globalisation")

Hypothesis Two: High Context Communication tools preferred

2005-05-10T21:45:00.000+02:00

What distinguishes TCKs today and those before the Internet became a household technology is the possibilities that exist today for instant and rich communication between them and their family and friends abroad. The Internet appears to hold strong potentials for immediate connection to past places, with the possibilities of cheap IP-telephony and webcam communication, making it possible today to indulge in rich and dialogical communication sessions.

In the same way that book readership makes it possible to immerse into deeper levels of everyday life of a culture, so it would be expected for streamed visual communication.

This is especially interesting considering that due to living in different cultures, we could assume that TCKs learn to act and communicate in different styles. Webcams could increase the possibility of interlocuting with the aid of body language and gestures, communication cues that are especially prevalent in high context cultures such as asian countries.

We would hypothesise that

H2: ATCKs have a need for webcams and other high context communication tools in their everyday lives.

Hypothesis One: Interest in Local News on Foreign Websites

2005-05-10T14:46:00.000+02:00

Although very little is written on TCKs and their use of the media, one thing that struck me was the "3D view" that they have on the world. As an example, Pollock and Useem mention that TCKs "get homesick" while watching National Geographic for instance:

As TCKs live in various cultures, they not only learn about cultural differences but also experience the world in a tangible way that is impossible to do through reading books, seeing movies, or watching nightly newscasts alone. Because they have lived in so many places, smelled so many smells, heard so many strange sounds, and been in so many strange situations, throughout their lives when they read a story in the newspaper or watch it on the TV screen, the flat, odorless images transform into an internal 3-D panoramic picture show. It's almost as if they were there in person, smelling the smells, tasting the tastes, perspiring with the heat. They may not be present at the event, but they have a clear awareness of what is going on and what it is like for those who are there. (Pollock & van Reken, 2001: 83 - 84)

I think that the experience that they are referring to here is something that we all experience once in a while - the funny feeling that we get, when we unexpectedly see a very well known landmark that we visit every day on TV. When we see this image, we also see what is invisible to others who are viewing the same image, for instance the surroundings behind the camera and behind the landmark.

We could suppose that ATCKs (Adult Third Culture Kids) then would hunger for images and stories from afar to regain a sense of proximity to the places which they know so very well, and that they would use the Internet as a main tool for this purpose. One main source would be news websites, especially those with video news. In-depth narratives and stories would be preferred from simple “shallow” news, so we might expect that a high percentage of ATCKs would be likely to own subscriptions to certain newspapers (online or offline) to delve in richer and more detailed accounts of countries afar.

This hypothesis is further supported by the findings of Jeffres et al., who submit that among the more traditional media (TV, Radio and books), individuals with a very high “cosmopoliteness score” prefer to explore their world through book readership, rather than up-to-minute reports of world events, compared to individuals with a “low cosmopoliteness score” (from “A model linking community activity and communication with political attitudes and involvement in neighbourhoods” (2002), referred to in “Cosmopoliteness in the Internet Age”).

So, my first hypothesis would be that

H1: ATCKs are likely to prefer web news from TV news due to the global diversity available on the Internet, and due to in depth accounts about the localities in which they were brought up.

Relevant Studies in the Past

2005-05-08T13:39:00.000+02:00

The first study that inspired me to do this thesis, is this one by Thomas Tufte: “Ethnic Minority Danes between Diaspora and Locality”, found in Global Encounters: Media and Cultural Transformation, 2002 (reviews here). Here, he looked at how the children of immigrants in Denmark used the new media to create a sense of belonging in Copenhagen, Denmark while at the same time keeping up their relationship to the cultures that were being learnt at home from their parents and relatives. Interestingly, these youths didn't use the Internet nearly as much as they used the mobile phone, although perhaps this could be due to the fact that 1) only half of the interviewed had Internet in their homes at the time of the interview (1999 - 2000), or due to the parents' attitude to their children using this technology. While the interviewees claim that they nonetheless seek Internet access at internet cafés and friends' houses, the missing comfort of being in one's private space could have an influence on their limited use.

The first study that inspired me to do this thesis is one conducted by Thomas Tufte in 1999 - 2000. Here, he looked at how the children of immigrants in Denmark used the new media to create a sense of belonging in Copenhagen, Denmark while at the same time keeping up their relationship to the cultures that were being learnt at home from their parents and relatives. Interestingly, these youths didn't use the Internet nearly as much as they used the mobile phone, although perhaps this could be due to the fact that 1) only half of the interviewed had Internet in their homes at the time of the interview (1999 - 2000), or due to the parents' attitude to their children using this technology. While the interviewees claim that they nonetheless seek Internet access at internet cafés and friends' houses, the missing comfort of being in one's private space could have an influence on their limited use.

Tufte's youths thus use the new media for the purpose of creating locality rather than for the purpose of maintaining contact with their passport countries. However, he further observes, their production of locality does not necessarily entail reaching out to Danish majority youths, rather the media serves to create a sense of belonging with other ethnic minority youngsters in Denmark, regardless of their countries of origin:

On the one hand, the social organisation of everyday life among ethnic minority Danes in Nørrebro generally reiterates the formation of a symbolic and material space separate from that of majority Danes. The uses of mobile phones cannot be seen as playing a proactive role in this but do however reinforce social relations and social boundaries in and under formation.

This young generation - of mostly second generation migrants - have developed significant social networks and communities that transcend ethnic origin, configure hybrid groups of ethnic minority Danes and position them in an oppositional role to the majority Danes. It remains unclear how far this is a deliberate and strategic choice of these youngsters. Obviously, they are in an age-range where boundary marking is very important, and as such, the articulation of this otherness provides them with an identity. (Tufte, 2002:257)

Another study which I find relevant, and more recent, is the study on Cosmopoliteness in the Internet Age by Jeffres et al., which I found over at Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (2004). This is rather more a quantitative study which researches the connection between the level of cosmopoliteness and the use of the Internet, especially news. Their findings of high cosmopoliteness = high use of web news chime pretty well with my research, although the study doesn't explain the reasons for this correlation. Also it is unclear which way round this works - it seems that the researchers assume that one becomes a cosmopolitan because of his use of the net, rather than the other way round.

It is my standpoint that the use of the net reflects what one experiences in everyday life and not the other way round. Tufte's youths may use the mobile phone to construct a sense of local belonging through the constructon of a common "third identity", but there is a high possibility that this third identity would be constructed even without the mobile phone, but equally due to everyday communication in school.

The individuals who are the subjects of my study are rather different from Tufte's youths. Although they too have a multicultural background, TCKs differ from immigrants in that they are expected to, and usually do, return to their passport countries. According to Tufte, his respondents expect to keep living in Copenhagen. Another difference is the fact that the interviewees in Tufte's study come from underprivileged families, whereas TCKs are generally (although I hate this word) from elitist backgrounds.

One major drawback in this article, if I am to use it in connection with my own study, is the fact there is little way of knowing how far the individuals with a high level of cosmopoliteness are merely interested in foreign cultures, and explore these from afar, or whether they have intimate knowledge of these, e.g. after having lived there for a while.

The Promise of Intercultural Communication on the Web

2005-05-07T10:36:00.000+02:00

The increasingly interactive qualities of the Internet, especially as the convergence of TV and the phone into the Internet is happening, it is becoming more and more promising that the possibility for individuals to enter the rhetorical stage in Third Culture Building is increasing.

The Internet differs from other media such as TV in the posibilities to convey one's messages interculturally rather than cross-culturally. In 1973, Stan Harms proposed this useful distinction between intercultural and cross-cultural communication:

(Intercultural Communication, 1973, in Charles Ess' notes from his guest lecturing at the IT-University in 2003)

Thus, intercultural communication is the dialogical conversational communication, and used to come to agreement on something. It requires tolerance and patience, but the message is then developed into something both interlocutors can use. Cross-cultural communication in ICTs is for example, when Microsoft merely translates a text so as better to "push their message" into the receiving culture. In the language of Chen and Starosta, we might say that cross-cultural communication is the mechanical reproduction of a pre-determined message (e.g. buy our product), whereas intercultural communication promotes global listening.

I mentioned my concern earlier about how the Third Culture Model seems to emphasise interlocution between individuals, that is, explaining their cultures through stories and narratives in words. Fortunately, research does show that while the Internet used to be considered a text-based media, cultures in which communication includes a high level of context do in fact find strategies to overcome communication over a mainly text-based medium through the other media present on the 'net, i.e., the use of videos and images to convey body language, moods and values. Thus, we are one step closer to the realisation of narratives being successfully explained between cultures.

The learning-by-doing aspect, the internalising of tacit knowledge seems more realistic the further progress we make in terms of ways of expressing ourselves on the net, although there is quite a long way before we can deeply immerse ourselves into the fine grains of culture over the 'net.

Children of Globalisation

2005-05-06T17:15:00.000+02:00

If anyone has experienced third culture building, it must be the Third Culture Kids.

In the States there seems to have been a good deal of research going on, on what becomes of the children of expats, and especially, how do children who live a highly mobile life develop, and how does it influence their cultural identification? Children who have spent a number of their development years as expats are often referred to as either Third Culture Kids (TCKs) or Global Nomads - the former term referring to an interstitial "culture between cultures", the latter rather referring to the detachment of the individual to any physical location.

TCK Researchers David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken explain this process. Their book entitled "Third Culture Kids - The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds", and is written for the (American) expat community, so don't expect an especially scientific text, although easy and pleasing to read.

While Third Culture Building is theoretically possible for anyone to undergo (hence the emergence of TCAs - Third Culture Adults), Chen and Starosta mention a number of barriers that are to be overcome for this to happen successfully. Successful TCB happens through successful global listening, and for global listening to be successful, the interlocutors must first overcome any assumptions and truisms that they may have deeply indoctrinated within themselves through surroundings - e.g. censored TV.

Through one's developmental years, especially during the school age, we are especially susceptible to the cultural cues to which we are exposed; it is through these that we shape our way of understanding the world as adults. When brought up among cultures, we are constantly challenged with cultural cues from family at home, those from teachers and peers at school. Thus, our identity and sense of belonging is affected from dual or multiple frameworks of references, and we experience first-hand the cultural differences, tacit knowledges and behavioural cues, (the deep cultural elements)rather than merely interlocuting interculturally with people from other cultures. I'll end this post for now with the following quote by Peter Adler on the definition of a multicultural man (or woman):

The multicultural person is not simply the person who is sensitive to many different cultures. Rather, he is a person who is always in the process of becoming a part of and apart from a given cultural context.(...) He has no permanent cultural character but neither is he free from influences of culture. In the shifts and movement of his identity process, the multicultural man is continually recreating the symbol of himself. Peter S. Adler, Beyond Cultural Identity (quoted in Thorbjørn Hansen)

Third Culture Building, part deux

2005-05-06T16:15:00.000+02:00

Resuming from my earlier post on Third Culture Building, Starosta seems to have proposed a slightly different TCB model of stages together with Guo-Ming Chen (although I admit, the differences are minimal).

Listening among those of differing cultures moves from an intracultural stage(Culture One) to an interpersonal stage(Culture 2). It then enters an intercultural stage of relationship building and restructuring, and a rhetorical stage of internalizing any changes. Finally, it enters a new intracultural stage at a more global level. The rhetorical stage is one in which variant values are negotiated and adjusted among parties so as to render them mutually palatable. The restructured view of the world that follows global listening can be termed Culture Three.

When experiencing the world from one's own point of view, this may be described as an emic view. This is in contrast to the etic point of view, in which the world is experienced from the outside. Through global listening, one moves away from the emic view, to the etic, and finally, after having been immersed in the latter view for long enough, one develops a double-emic view, in which pieces of their own culture and of the culture of "the other" conjoin to produce a new reality.

Model for Global Listening

2005-05-06T14:31:00.000+02:00

In my search for the Third Culture Building Model, I ordered Communication and Global Society (2000) edited by Guo-Ming Chen and William J. Starosta.

In the text entitled "Listening Across Diversity in Global Society", written by the editors themselves, they explain that while some view communication between individuals as a consecutive transmission of messages, they rather prefer to view it as the negotiation between the interactants for a common ground, creating then an interpretation of a message that "belongs to neither party, yet belongs to both of them" (pg 279). Thus, active listening is preferred to mechanical message reproduction working towards a predetermined end product. They propose the following model for Global Listening, in which the three circles represent sets of meanings belonging to each a different culture:

Figure 1: An Equilibrium Model of Global Listening

Key: A, B, C are primary message and interpretive communities' meanings. AB, AC, BC are interactions that cross primary community identities. ABC are taken-for-granteds and shared interpretations and experience. (ibid., pg 280)

When individuals from different cultures interact, they create common grounds for meanings. The interlocutors also share some "taken-for-granteds" which make the communication possible. The other spaces between the subsets (AB, AC and BC) comprise instances of cultural listening. Thus, they submit, their model proposes that Global Society is found in a negotiated semantic space between, rather than within, existing cultures.

In real life, we might assume that these semantic spaces could be considered places such as international schools, international conferences, airports, in which to enable the inclusion of all who may frequent these places, a set of common denominators/culturally "neutral" values and behaviours are decided upon to best cater to the most individuals possible. For instance, the use of English as a lingua franca at international conferences, the teachings of ethics rather than specific religions at international schools, and the use of symbols and signs to communicate direction at the airport.

Michael Walzer, who proposed the Thick and Thin distinction between moralities (and whose work Soraj Hongladarom based his concept of "thick" and "thin" cultures) suggests:

This dualism is, I think, an internal feature of every morality. Philosophers most often describe it in terms of a (thin) set of universal principles adapted (thickly) to these or those historical circumstances. I have in the past suggested the image of a core morality differently elaborated in different cultures. Walzer, 1996:4, quoted in Snauwert, 2003

I am assuming that this core morality is what could be understood, by extension, as the assumed commonalities and "taken-for-granteds", which are labeled as ABC in the Model for Global Listening.

Third Culture Building

2005-05-05T14:51:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately, I have very limited access to relevant articles and books describing in more detail how Third Cultures come about. However, I have managed to find tidbits here and there describing an actual Third Culture Building model:

Starosta and Olorunnisola's Third Culture Model

Five stages w/ the following accommodations:

1: Intrapersonal Intracultural (inside yourself)
- awareness
- presentation

2: Interpersonal Intercultural (initial contact)
- inquiry
- reciprocation
- mutual adjustment

3: Rhetorical Intercultural (more intense discussion and knowledge of the other)

-> requires two preconditions: conscious awareness of differences; willingness to suspend judgment

- convergence
- integration

4: Metacultural (culture based on others’ cultures)
- readjustment/ reinforcement
- mutual assimilation

5: Intracultural (redirection to the third culture)
- primary culture abandonment (in terms of the relationship)

Final stage implies ability to operate in dual (or more) cultures; founded on empathy and ability to treat crosscultural relationships differently.

(Taken from Emilie Gould's slides on Attribution and Relationship Development)

From what I gather, (although I realise it's a little dangerous to say that one comprehends theoretical frameworks through skimming PowerPoint Slides,) intercultural training consultants propose that to gain cross-cultural understanding, one can either acculturate to a different culture (learn the language and appropriate behaviour), or by meeting in the middle and thereby construct a Third Culture through social exchange.

I suppose that a Third Culture built this way would then comprise of superficial elements and as such have a nature similar to Hongladarom's cosmopolitan, thin culture, which I suppose is fine in e.g. a business setting. A 'thick' third culture would probably have to include a deeper submersion to get all the "tacit" elements of culture internalised, if we are to speak of a third culture that can really create a new identity.

Culture Iceberg

2005-05-05T14:40:00.000+02:00

Mostly just for reference: A simple visualisation of culture is the culture iceberg

(see also a description of the iceberg metaphor here and another, more detailed visualisation here (pdf))

Internet as a Non-Place

2005-05-05T13:24:00.000+02:00

I mentioned Marc Augé and his notion of Non-Places earlier, and just as I was beginning to wonder if the Internet could be considered a Non-Place, I realised that the ever so excellent researcher and blogger Torill Mortensen whose blog I've been following for some time now, already approached this subject two years ago, in 2003. The Geography of a Non-Place approaches Non-Places in relation to MUDs, unfortunately an area of cyberspace which I have chosen not to focus on, however a very interesting read and still very relevant - I expect to be quoting and referring to it a great deal in my thesis.

She quotes Augé:

A paradox of a non-place: a foreigner lost in a country he does not know (a 'passing stranger') can feel at home there only in the anonymity of motorways, service stations, big stores or hotel chains. For him, an oil company logo is a reassuring landmark; among the supermarket shelves he falls with relief on sanitary, household or food products validated by multinational brand names. (Augé 1995:106)

Non-places then, are those "common denominator" places which speak a language that the majority will be able to understand, in which sets of meanings are created to be understood by anyone, regardless of where they are from. Non-Places could perhaps be understood as those places in which Third Cultures are built (or perhaps as the products of Third Culture Building?).

What has always troubled me about Augés Non-Places is the assumption that due to the lack of history and culture, they don't support identity construction. I have to agree with John Tomlinson when he says that at the airport, the designated Non-Place role-model,

for [the check-in clerks, the baggage handlers, cleaners, caterers, security staff], the non-place of the terminal is clearly a 'real' place - their workplace. And we must assume that it is experiences by them with all the anthropological richness the tacit rules of 'living know-how', the subtleties of daily interpersonal contact, the friendships, rivalries and so on that apply to any other place of work. So the designation of places as non-places is clearly not an absolute, but one that depends, crucially on perspective. (Tomlinson, 1999:111)

It must be assumed that this is even more a reality for Sir Alfred of Charles-du-Gaulle Airport who has been living at the french airport since 1988. Mortensen includes him as a prime example of a man who has, by definition, been living in a Non-Place, but who it is reported to have a daily routine in the place between heaven and earth in which he has found a home:

His life follows the quotidian airport cycle. He wakes at 5:30 in order to shave in the men's room before passengers arrive. He reads all day long. At night, he waits until the airport stores are locked before he brushes his teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste from a complimentary airline travel kit. Weekly, he rinses out his clothes overnight in the bathroom.

PS: Extending the idea of Third Cultures and Third Spaces presented earlier, I do find it interesting that Playstation in fact assumed "The Third Place" as their slogan. However, they are probably referring to Oldenburg's understanding of third places as a space for community, and distinguished from home (the first place), and work (the second). An interesting article on this by Mark McGuire over at Ezine, including a couple of thoughts on the virtual worlds of computer games as (ta-daa!) Non-Places.

Bridgespace

2005-05-04T16:34:00.000+02:00

Having established that defining culture is a work in progress, there seems to be an agreement that one central element in the construction of one's cultural identity is communication. It is, for instance, through communication with those like us, and in the interaction with those different from us, that we are able to position and reposition ourselves with relation to a group, thereby establishing our sense of belonging. Not only are we affected and inspired by what others think, but there is a certain need to express one's own cultural identity to others, for instance through clothes and verbal expression of opinions.

It is precisely for this reason, that CMCs are so interesting to me. There are a number of ways in which culture is communicated through the Internet, and the possibilities for this are constantly increasing in number, as the Internet not only continues its diffusion throughout the world, but the technological possibilities of streaming videos, sending images, and cost and time barriers are being removed for the increase of interpersonal communication (especially with the increasing popularity of IP-telephony in homes).

At this point, I really should show you the following article by Paul Adams and Rhina Ghose, called India.com - The construction of a space between (2003). Unfortunately, this article is subscription only, but I have been able to locate matching slides here, which should give you a bit of an overview.

What is especially interesting about this text is their notion of "bridgespace", a virtual space that supports flows of people, goods, capital and ideas between countries, which in their case is South Asia and North America.

We will call the context for international identity formation, sensation, social relations and embodiment a 'bridgespace'. This bridgespace in general is a collection of interconnected virtual places that support people's movement between two regions or countries and the sustenance of cultural ties at a distance. The bridgespace we study is not the internet or part of the internet; it is a space built in and through the internet and other media. (...) A subtle but important point is that bridgespaces do not create links between places; links are created by people - but people's actions require channels, and these channels may be static structures like roads, or dynamic systems like airline flight schedules or the internet. Thus bridgespace is an environment, not an actor. (Adams & Ghose, 2003)

The authors also present a map of the links that bind South Asia together with North America. These include for instance, the possibility for members of the Indian Diaspora in the US to conduct a virtual pooja (prayer or offering) through the cracking of virtual coconuts, the ringing of "bells" and the sprinkling of flower petals on interactive websites. Placed more prominently on the borders between South Asia and North America, sites are to be found including travel agency sites, money transfer and gift delivery sites, and immediately to each side of the channel space, employment and education sites.

Bridgespace then, is definitely an interesting element in the current research, and gives me a very useful label to call this "Space Between" cultures in cyberspace. Again, it chimes with the Non-Places which I mentioned in an earlier post, especially with regard to the idea that transfer service sites such as gift delivery sites are those that inhabit bridgespace. Education sites for instance, which are more reflective of culture are certainly more "anthropological", but are placed to the sides of border between South Asia and North America.

Hmm.

The Placeless Identity

2005-05-04T14:42:00.000+02:00

Culture is a great many things. It is not surprising that there is no determined definition of culture, especially in an age where we acknowledge that cultures as determined by national boundaries is too simplistic.

Our cultural identity is a fan of roles that we can pick from and express - roles determined by our relation to the family, professionally, nationally. Cultural identity in my thesis however, will mainly be referred to in terms of one's relationship to nations - determined through one's ethnic background, citizenship and surroundings, the learned patterns of values and behaviour that one especially acquires throughout childhood.

Although this may be a simplistic way of seeing things, it seems that there is still a social expectation that all individuals should assume a nationality as part of one's identity. As Norwegian anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen asks, why is it necessary to have an identity? (Skal vi tvinges til å ha en identitet?, 1994. Eng: Must we have an identity?) He notes that there seems to be a common belief, that an individual has a psychological need to belong to a nation or religion, however unexplained. Agreeing with Hylland Eriksen, Finn Thorbjørn Hansen (link in Danish)observes and adds that while the UN professes the right to assume any nationality, it does not mention the right not to assume any (Kunsten at Navigere i Kaos, 1995. Eng: The art of navigating in chaos).

This then approaches one of the core problematics in the lives of Third Culture Kids, in which the idea of a physical place being somewhere that they can call home and always feel that they belong can seem very obscure (hence the other term, "Global Nomads" seems very relevant). Probably this is why they often feel a sense of relief when they are posed with the option of identifying themselves merely as children who have grown up in a third culture, thereby being given a label to their missing link.

Culture's In-Between

2005-05-04T08:29:00.000+02:00

I think that by now, most agree that cultures as we understand them are in fact not the cultures that exist today. As a vast number of scholars have pointed out, the globalisation effects that post-colonial scholars have been focusing on a great deal, (See for instance Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall) seem to be resulting in so-called hybrid identities. These are new identities which are conjured up from the positioning of the individual, not merely as a process of "us" and "them, but as the constant ping-ponging between cultures of the individual, which may in the end result in the creation of a new identity.

Thus, through the rise of these hybrid identities, we can assume that whole cultures are being constructed on the borderlines of nations and cultures. How should we term these new cultures?

Homi Bhabha (whose article's title was stolen for the heading of this post) speaks of Third Spaces:

The non-synchronous temporality of global and national cultures opens up a cultural space -- a third space--where the negotiation of incommensurable differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences. . . Hybrid hyphenisations emphasize the incommensurable elements as the basis of cultural identities.

Bhabha was possibly inspired by the idea of Third Cultures, a term which may have been coined by Dr. Ruth Useem in the 60s. Here, she refers to the third culture as an "interstitial culture" between two or more cultures. Thus, what Third Spaces and Third Cultures have in common is the idea that individuals, especially children(termed by Useem as Third Culture Kids) who grow up with close contact to two or more cultures choose their own sets of values and beliefs, to create their own reference frameworks.

However, it is yet not clear to me whether these frameworks are to be understood as a mix and match of cultural elements selected from those cultures that they mostly interact with, (which we may term "hybridity") or if we should rather consider their frameworks to comprehend a number of common denominators, universal values and deeds which are then applicable in all cultures.

I am however, more likely to adopt Soraj Hongladarom's proposal for a theoretical framework: the distinction between thin and thick cultures (Hongladarom, 1998).

When participants of widely disparate cultures come to interact, what happens is that there emerge a kind of culture which is devoid of historical backgrounds that give each local culture its separate identity; it is, for example, the culture of international conferences. The newly emerging culture is comparable to piped music one hears in airports or in modern supermarkets; that is, it is shorn of its value, its role in a people’s scheme of things. It plays no part in the ritual of a traditional culture. In short, it has become sanitized and modernized. Let us call this kind of culture the ‘cosmopolitan’ one.(ibid., 241)

This 'cosmopolitan' culture is the thin culture. The thick culture then, should be understood as the culture in which values do exist, where the fine grain of everyday life can be found, in the local area of the city outside of the airport etc. Hongladarom then, seems to a have framework that involves not a lot of third spaces marbling the cultures of the world, but rather a sort of "umbrella" culture, one thinly spread over globe instead.

This draws associations with Marc Augés idea of Non-Places. Non-Places should be understood as spaces such as airports, supermarkets and highways. These are physical spaces which we enter in our everyday lives, but which are devoid of identity, history and culture, recognising them then as counterparts to anthropological places. The transitory nature of such places, seem somewhat relevant with regard to this thesis - something which I will undoubtedly be elaborating on later.

Do you see what I'm trying to get at? It would seem, then, that the non-anthropological places that Augé calls non-places, and which are considered to be devoid of culture and identity, could in fact lead to the construction of new cultures, although "thin".

These are all tentative thoughts and linkages, which I will of course continue to try to elaborate on. Might I just add at the end of this post that I am really quite impressed if you've read this far? ;-)

About the Research

2005-05-04T08:10:00.000+02:00

Put simply, my somewhat ambitious research question sounds something like this:

In what ways does the Internet influence one's cultural identity and sense of belonging, and can we speak of an emerging cosmopolitan culture because of all this?

My interest lies especially in the theory of Late Modernity (see for instance, Anthony Giddens) and the idea that unlike the essentialist view on identity, where we all contain one true self, nowadays we all own a whole repertoire of identities, which we can wear as what suits best to the situation. We all like to tell a story about ourselves, as part of a reflexive discourse among ourselves, and in order to place ourselves in relation to others.

Speaking of cultural identity, I take on Stuart Hall's idea that it is not constructed only of where we come from and our roots, but also where we are and where we will be going in the future. The routes which we walk are therefore equally as essential as the roots from which we come from.

People like John Tomlinson also speak of the media and it's ability to "deterritorialise" - referring not to having land expropriated, but rather as the idea of people being "lifted out" from their surroundings and context to interact with an environment elsewhere. Can the Internet then, being reflective of cultures, deterritorialise us and help us keep in touch with past homes and thereby keep our transnational identity intact? With the Internet spreading over such a vast number of countries, can the rubbing of these against each other create new spaces, new cultures and new identities?

For now, I'm breaking this all up into tiny, tiny bits. Hopefully then, and with your help, I'll be able to come up with a potential answer.

About This Blog

2005-05-03T11:18:00.000+02:00

Perhaps this blog needs some explanation. It's probably a slightly different blog from what you are used to, in that it will rely very much on your comments to work. It's perhaps a little ambitious, yes I know, but it might just work.

Well, if you've found this weblog, you probably also know what it's about. I guess it's supposed to work as a forum, rather than a diary. It's actually for my research on the Internet and the effect it can have on cultural identities... and in particular, I'm hoping that it might have some potential in giving a form of quality in the lives of a certain group of people - multicultural kids, who have experienced being born in a country different from their parents', who have moved around alot or simply feel that they don't have one country which they consider to be home.

The name of this blog is my attempt to get to the core of the issue here - by transit, I refer to airports and terminals, and the stages and periods of our lives where we are throwing ourselves back and forth between countries and cultures. I think airport terminals are a nice symbol for where we feel comfortable - knowing that we can flee from one place to the other, but also knowing that we then foster a belonging to everywhere and nowhere - sometimes causing us to feel like cosmopolitans, or citizens of the world.

So, the idea is this: I raise an issue revolving the life-world of a multicultural person. I tell you what I think, and then I ask you to answer. What do you think?

About Me

2005-05-03T08:11:00.000+02:00

I'm so sorry, you must think I'm terribly rude. Here I am, asking you to believe that all this sassy theory that I'm writing is so true and intellectual, while you might not even have a clue about who I am. I suppose I should do things properly.

So Hi.

My name is Elizabeth, and my life right now revolves around the MSc thesis that I'm writing. I'm enrolled at the IT-University of Copenhagen studying Design, Communication and Media, and while I thought I would end up focusing on webdesign, I have found that cultural studies with relation to IT are much more interesting (you may have noticed I haven't even bothered at this time to change the template for this blog to make me even seem slightly arty.)

While I find it really interesting to write this thesis, I am still looking forward to handing it in on the first of June and enjoying the summer so I can rediscover my very neglected passion for travelling, painting, cooking and (don't hold it against me!) interiour decorating.