Apprentice Cosmopolitans: Social Identity
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Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology 21 Ioannis Tsoukalas Apprentice Cosmopolitans Social identity, community, and learning among ERASMUS exchange students Apprentice Cosmopolitans Ioannis Tsoukalas ISBN 978-91-7797-775-9 ISSN 0347-0830 Department of Social Anthropology Doctoral Thesis in Social Anthropology at Stockholm University, Sweden 2019 Apprentice Cosmopolitans Social identity, community, and learning among ERASMUS exchange students Ioannis Tsoukalas Academic dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology at Stockholm University to be publicly defended on Friday 20 September 2019 at 10.00 in Seminarierummet, SCORE, Västra Nobelhuset, Frescativägen 14A. Abstract The present dissertation is an ethnographic study of the Erasmus Programme, the European Union’s student exchange programme. This programme has, for the last three decades, resulted in an unprecedented exchange of ideas and people within the European Union, and it has quite radically changed the conditions for, and the appearance of, student life in many European universities. Over the years the community has developed a distinctive lifestyle, replete with partying and travel, and is characterized by a strong social cohesion and exclusive ethos. Empirically the study is a multi-local field study involving participant observation and interviews in two European capitals, namely Stockholm and Athens. Both present and former Erasmus students have been included in the study and were followed for an extended period of time. The study takes a close look at some of the experiential and social processes of the ‘Erasmus lifestyle’ and tries to understand them in the light of wider cultural and political processes such as the European unification process, cosmopolitanism, youth culture, and tourism. In the process it surveys part of the programme’s political history, local configuration, social dynamics, communication practices and global interfaces. According to the present thesis, the Erasmus Programme can be seen as a learning apprenticeship through which the young students gain entrance to and get valuable training in the reality of living in an increasingly interconnected world. The strong experiences engendered by the programme, both emotionally and cognitively, lead to a transformation in the student’s self-perception, social representations and social identity. For some students the programme leads to a drastic reconfiguring of their social networks and extant allegiances (e.g., towards their nation, culture), prompting them, after the end of their sojourn, to explore new venues in terms of career development, family life, and place of residence. Although the students do not seem to integrate with the host country to any significant degree, their extended experience of transnational mobility and their first-hand acquaintance with cultural diversity within the group encourages them to develop a more cosmopolitan outlook on the world and their place within it. Keywords: multisite ethnography, cosmopolitanism, exchange students, mobility, transnational networks, cultural diversity, learning apprenticeship, liminality, transformative experience, life world, social identity, social representations. Stockholm 2019 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-169926 ISBN 978-91-7797-775-9 ISBN 978-91-7797-776-6 ISSN 0347-0830 Department of Social Anthropology Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm APPRENTICE COSMOPOLITANS Ioannis Tsoukalas Apprentice Cosmopolitans Social identity, community, and learning among ERASMUS exchange students Ioannis Tsoukalas ©Ioannis Tsoukalas, Stockholm University 2019 ISBN print 978-91-7797-775-9 ISBN PDF 978-91-7797-776-6 ISSN 0347-0830 Printed in Sweden by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2019 Table of contents Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 Aim and scope of study 5 Learning as apprenticeship 6 Cosmopolitanism: a new civic mentality 9 Europeanism 12 Unfinished business and unintended consequences 14 Delineating the field 14 Methodological considerations 16 Data collection 16 Entering the field of the Erasmus 17 Engaging the Erasmus students 18 Ethnography at home: some personal reflections 19 Ethnography at one’s second home: further reflections 21 History 23 The Erasmus students in a comparative perspective 23 The EU legacy: ideology and goals 25 The Erasmus grant 28 Reception on the ground 29 Who studies abroad? 31 The north-south divide 31 Socioeconomic background 31 Parental education 32 Personal and professional commitments 33 Language barrier 34 Concluding remarks 34 Locality 36 The reception of incoming students 37 The Introduction Week 37 Visiting a national shrine 38 Enrolment day in Athens 39 The urban setting: comparative exercises 41 The accommodation issue 43 Double fencing 46 Coursework 49 Adapting to a new environment 51 Concluding remarks 55 1 Sociality 57 The Erasmus experience: a way to adulthood 58 Familiarization with the local environment 60 The social life of the Erasmus students 62 Communal dinners 63 Processions through town 65 Partying: non-stop 66 Athens by night 69 Travel: young vagabonds 70 Commercial interests 73 New friendships 75 Friends on visit 76 A marginal social position 78 Perturbations of the self 80 The pain of separation: end of the sojourn 82 Group dynamics and temporal development 82 Conformity pressures 83 A world of its own 84 Relations and representations in time and space 85 Homecoming: the swing of the pendulum 88 Concluding remarks 90 Communication 92 The communication practices of the Erasmus students 93 Spontaneous communication 93 Small talk 94 Gossip and information sharing 95 Social comparisons 97 Talking stereotypes… 98 …and performing them 99 Narratives of self and other 102 Information technology and media preferences 105 The case of Euronews 107 Concluding remarks 109 Globality 111 The global (student) village 111 Village factions 112 Touring Culture 116 The reunion meeting 117 The ‘travel bug’ 120 Living in time 122 …and out of time 124 Apprentice cosmopolitans 126 Concluding remarks 129 2 Conclusion 131 Serendipity strikes: the decentring of the local 131 Performativity and life worlds 132 Youth culture and leisure 136 A learning experience 137 Curtain call 138 Sammanfattning på svenska 140 References 141 Index 150 3 Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank Professor Christina Garsten, my principal supervisor, for her assistance and guidance during all the years of my dissertation project. Likewise, Professor Ivana Macek, my subsidiary supervisor who made important contributions in the later part of my work. I also want to thank Professor Ulf Hannerz for introducing me to KOSMOPOLIT, an interdisciplinary project devoted to the study of cosmopolitanism, and for being my first mentor and supervisor in this field of research. The other members of KOSMOPOLIT—Ronald Stade, Alexa Robertson, Annika Björkdahl, Mattias Viktorin and Katja Sarajeva—also served as important sources of inspiration and learning. Torbjörn Friberg, who was my examiner at the department’s final seminar, as well as Professor Johan Lindquist, who read and commented on the final draft of the manuscript, also need to be mentioned and thanked. There were a number of other people from the department who through their encouragement and cooperation, as well as their friendship, contributed towards the completion of this dissertation and also made the effort more socially rewarding. Some of them were Ann- Charlotte Krus, Eva Kodrou, Raoul Galli, Dina Avrahami, Christer Norström, Hasse Huss, Lotta Björklund Larsen, Per Drouge, Susann Ullberg and Peter Skoglund. Their support was greatly appreciated. I would like to thank my wife, Marit Holgersson, for the love, kindness and support she has shown during the many years it has taken me to write this thesis. Furthermore I would also like to thank my parents and my two sisters for their endless love and support. Finally, I would like to thank Barbara Beattie for proofreading and editing my manuscript prior to publication. 4 Introduction In early January and early August the campus of Stockholm University is usually a desolate and empty place. Save for a few staff members everybody is still on their scheduled leave and not expected to return for at least a couple of weeks—with one exception. Around this time a special group of people make their entrance into the campus area, either alone or in small groups. They are not the usual local students on their way to a lecture or some carefree school children on an educational excursion. Their colourful travelling bags and heavy backpacks betray a different origin. On their way through campus to the residential areas of Lappis, where many of them will live for the next half year or so, they evidence their stranger status by gazing with curious eyes into the novel surroundings, they exhibit signs of fatigue and frustration from their long journey, and they intercept local pedestrians with trivial but highly polite questions about directions. They look like tourists but are actually the newly arrived Erasmus students, part of the European Union’s student exchange programme. As enrolment day approaches the Erasmus students are joined by a steady stream of local students and teachers, all preparing for the start of yet another academic term. This study aims to investigate the social and cultural processes involved in being an exchange student under the auspices of the Erasmus Programme. This programme has for the last three decades resulted in an unprecedented exchange of people