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dc.contributor.authorScott, Joy Denise
dc.date.accessioned2017-01-30T11:35:12Z
dc.date.available2017-01-30T11:35:12Z
dc.date.created2015-05-14T20:00:35Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.identifier.citationScott, J.D. 2014. Memoir as a form of auto-ethnographic research for exploring the practice of transnational higher education in China. Higher Education Research & Development. 33 (4): pp. 757-768.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13146
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/07294360.2013.863844
dc.description.abstract

In this paper, I argue that memoir, as a form of auto-ethnographic research, is an appropriate method for exploring the complexities and singularities in the practice of western educational practitioners who are immersed in the social reality of offshore higher education institutions, such as those in Mainland China. I illustrate this proposition by showing how my own use of memoir is guided by a need to interrogate the unique experiences of my past life as 'the foreigner', 'the special one', 'the imported expert' and 'the cultural outsider', in order to lay bare the complexity of what it means to work and live in China as a foreign teacher and be recognised as different. I am interested in the notion of foreignness, and the ambiguities that arise when one operates as a teacher in a foreign culture, with a misguided and naïve understanding of one's own specialness as the foreign expert. My research methodology is based on critically reflective writing that acknowledges the multiplicity of historical, cultural and social differences, and the uniqueness of all individuals, whilst recognising that difference, at its heart, is a matter of relationship(s). This form of writing as educational research makes it possible to challenge some of the generalisations western scholars inadvertently make when writing about their teaching experiences in China.

dc.publisherRoutledge
dc.subjectoffshore education
dc.subjectforeign teachers
dc.subjectlived experience
dc.subjecthigher education
dc.subjectauto-ethnography
dc.subjectresearch methodologies
dc.subjectChina
dc.subjectmemoir
dc.titleMemoir as a form of auto-ethnographic research for exploring the practice of transnational higher education in China
dc.typeJournal Article
dcterms.source.volume33
dcterms.source.number4
dcterms.source.startPage757
dcterms.source.endPage768
dcterms.source.issn0729-4360
dcterms.source.titleHigher Education Research & Development
curtin.note

The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Higher Education Research & Development (2014), <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07294360.2013.863844">http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07294360.2013.863844</a>

curtin.departmentSchool of Media, Culture and Creative Arts
curtin.accessStatusOpen access


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