Exploring Intercultural Becoming Dynamics of Change: Algerian Ph.D. Students’ Experiences in the UK

Labani, Nasrine (2023) Exploring Intercultural Becoming Dynamics of Change: Algerian Ph.D. Students’ Experiences in the UK. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

The current research project explores the intercultural becoming dynamics (Chapter 5, Section 5.1) of change of eight Algerian Ph.D. students in study abroad contexts. Drawing on a non-essentialist perspective (Holliday, 1999, 2022) to culture and interculturality, and informed by conceptualizations of dialogic (Bakhtin, 1981) and transactional learning (Dewey, 1983/2008); the study seeks to generate a holistic understanding of the dynamics of intercultural self-positioning shifts in light of negotiated meaning making in participants’ lived experiences. Driven by a narrative theoretical and methodological foundation, the study sheds light on the lived experiences of participants through narratives, documenting the intercultural positioning of self vs the other, the different perspectives and attitudes of the language-culture interplay, and the various factors affecting the course of change in a sojourn abroad. Through a constructivist and intersubjective/subjective meta-theoretical rationale, the project followed a qualitative approach, with a longitudinal dimension to the data generation. The investigation took place over the course of 8 months, with narrative interviews conducted over three rounds, resulting in 28 interviews in total. Stimulated recall episodes were used as a technique to overtly elicit positionality perspective shifts during the period of the investigation. The research data was analysed by combining narrative thematic analysis with a refined positionality lens that broadly mirrors Bamberg’s (1997, 2004) three-level positioning. A thorough analysis of the data set featured three basic findings pertinent to the research questions. Firstly, the study introduced intercultural becoming as a process of self-negotiation whereby positioning is enacted through discrete, non-linear trajectories of perspective shifts in new intercultural settings. Participant narratives were a reflective projection of the dynamic shifts they have undergone during the study abroad experience, and the various processes negotiated including stereotypes mechanism shift, self-other positionality, and cultural background perspective re-evaluation. Secondly, participants demonstrated various aspects of negotiating the language-culture relationship which contributed to the process of their intercultural becoming and the self-positioning dynamics. The language-culture attitude, the UK experience as a super diverse context, and self-other positioning dynamics are all entangled to introduce shifts in both the ideological and intercultural becoming. Perceiving the negotiation of this language-culture net from a nonessentialist perspective provides a holistic explanation of the inherent reciprocity of ideological becoming (Bakhtin 1981) and language learning in the intercultural (Harvey, 2016). Finally, a key facet of shaping the course of participants’ intercultural journeys lies partially in the interference of distinctive factors prior to and post coming to the UK including, cultural identity effect, perceived intercultural awareness and knowledge, and the role of institutional bodies. These factors contributed to identifying the course and nature of their intercultural becoming at various levels and with distinctive degrees of interference.