What is it about?
Journeying in new landscapes and cultures destabilises established views of human nature relations. As they explore their surroundings, students enter a time of knowledge co-construction and generation. This can be supported by the approaches to teaching offered by the staff and enhanced by studying with students from the host country. There is also an impact on these 'native' students and they experience being in the gaze of the visitors who are wondering and questioning about things they tend to take for granted. the experience also has an impact on the view that international students have of their own cultures and landscapes.
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Why is it important?
This process, carefully facilitated, has outcomes that support agendas of changing relations between humans and nature, changing power relations between staff and students concerning knowledge acquisition and the development of an important skill for students considering futures in an international context.
Perspectives
For me, the most exciting aspect of the insights gained from this research are the possibilities afforded by pedagogies that allow staff and students to look afresh at human nature relations. To me, this is an important capacity at a time of globalisation, internationalism and, importantly, the urgent need for a new contract between humans and nature. Destabilising old viewed and creating opportunities for new views to emerge co-constructed across generations and cultures has significant potential for developing new visions for the future at intercultural and international levels.
Dr Chris Loynes
University of Cumbria
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The journey as a transcultural experience for international students, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, June 2017, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/03098265.2017.1337734.
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