Devi Akella, Looking beyond the gaze. A reflective faculty learning experience
In Anteliz, E. A., Mulligan, D. L., & Danaher, P. A. Eds. The Routledge international handbook of autoethnography in educational research, Routledge, 2023
Extract from introduction
Numerous articles emphasising the need for international cultural immersion and community engagement experiences which encourage students to be active participants in the learning process leading to advanced critical thinking and global competency skills have been published in the last few years (Lessor, Reeves & Andrade, 1997; Vande Berg, Connor-Linton & Paige, 2009). However, less attention has been focused on the faculty members who take the lead by internationalising their curriculum and exposing their students to global exploration through travel expeditions, where they too might face similar learning situations as their own students (Akella, 2016; Coryell, 2016; Fischer, 2008; Hall, 2007; Mohamed, 2016; Todd, 2016).
However, faculty just like their student counterparts, acquire intercultural expertise through “teaching and research opportunities abroad and by building relationships with peers in other countries” (ACE, 2012, p. 4). An understanding of international settings and respect for cultural differences would place faculty members in an advantage in classrooms and when interacting with their students. It would allow faculty members to teach students cultural sensitivity and equip them with multicultural competencies. For faculty members these travel experiences can be “transformative” (Fischer, 2008, p. 2), resulting in “intellectual dynamism” (Hall, 2007, p. 54) and “academic refueling” (Festervand & Tillery, 2001, p. 110) forcing them to “rethink [about their] professional self-definitions and boundaries” (Hall, 2007, p. 54). In fact, traveling abroad for faculty members could involve painful moments, of moving beyond their comfort zone, challenging their mental schemas, acknowledging past misconceptions and prejudices, trying to deconstruct happenings, and rebuilding one’s external picture of the world. A process of going beyond one’s professional gaze, of evolving into a new person outside the disciplinary gaze of one’s own political system and country. A process of self-transformation gradually resulting in the creation of a more knowledgeable teacher, broad-minded academic, intellectually stimulated researcher, and a more open-minded person (Eddy, 2014; Festervand & Tillery, 2001; Fischer, 2008; Hall, 2007; Keese & O’Brien, 2011).
Integrating Foucault’s (1997) philosophies of disciplinary gaze and the model of situated learning, along with the research method of autoethnography, this chapter endeavors to capture my transformation process.
Foucault News 