title:
|
Border crossing networks : virtual makes it real |
author: |
Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska Agnieszka , Lundberg Anita, Enhörning Singhateh Anna |
editor:
|
Fan Si, Lê Thao, Lê Quynh, Yue Yun |
book title:
|
International Conference Innovative Research in a Changing and Challenging World : conference proceedings (A) |
date of publication
:
|
2012 |
place of publication : name of publisher:
|
Launceston : Australian Multicultural Interaction Institute
|
pages:
|
81-94 |
ISBN: |
978-0-646-58268-9
|
URL: |
http://www.auamii.com/conference%20proceeding%20book%20A%20&%20B/A_AMII_conference_proceeding_book.pdf
|
date accessed: |
2015-01-29
|
notes:
|
Konferencja miała miejsce w mieście Phuket w Tajlandii, 16–18 maja 2012 roku. |
language: |
English |
book language:
|
English |
abstract in English: |
Informed by new interdisciplinary network theories and phenomenology this paper set out to
undertake a preliminary study of the use of blogs as a tool for intercultural interaction and
reflection for students on an international exchange program. The process of analysing blogs
lead, however, to a deeper questioning of the premises underlying the “Border Crossings’
exchange program. This, in turn, required analysing the very processes involved in the
production of this paper, which is itself a product of ‘interdisciplinary research in a changing and
challenging world.”
The international exchange program ‘Border Crossings: People and Places’ is a joint mobility
project between four European and four Australian universities (one of which has an offshore
campus in Singapore). The program aims to enhance understanding of the issues surrounding
global migration which affect Europe and Australia within their wider geo-cultural contexts,
including Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The Border Crossings theme addresses cross-cultural
communication, international relations, languages, development studies, history, politics, law
and humanities. Its primary objective is to encourage innovative curricula, academic
cooperation and student mobility through a network of exchanges involving 64 students who
crisscross the world to spend a semester at a partner institution and 40 faculty staff who
undertake two week exchanges.
As part of its innovative intent, a blog site was created for students to interact online. Thus, the
students are linked in a web of relations that span across eight universities and five countries
over four semesters between 2011 and 2013. In weekly posts students reflect upon experiences
of space, place, movement, transition and culture – as well as subject themes of the project. The
blog site is thus a space in which to articulate the everyday experiences of global education,
even as it is simultaneously involved in creating the networks that constitute global education.
Through blogging, the Border Crossings mobility program offers more than the movement of
bodies between institutions in Euclidean space; it is also crossing (out) borders between reality
and virtuality – creating a new geographic imaginary of networked, relational, space. |
keywords in English: |
interdisciplinary, network theories, international student exchange, space and place, phenomenology, relationality, blogs, geographic imaginary |
departmental parameterization: |
3,3 |
affiliation: |
Wydział Studiów Międzynarodowych i Politycznych : Instytut Amerykanistyki i Studiów Polonijnych |
type: |
chapter |
subtype: |
conference proceedings |