Department of Social Sciences and International Studies Embroidering Myself into Otherness: An Auto-ethnographic Inquiry of Border-crossing Joy Denise Scott This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University May 2013 DECLARATION To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any other university. Signature: ……………………………………………………… Date: …………………………………… ABSTRACT In this thesis I use auto-ethnography to explore the complexities and singularities of a western teacher immersed in the social reality of a Chinese university. I interrogate the unique experiences of my past life as ‘the foreigner’, ‘the special one’, ‘the imported expert’, ‘the cultural outsider’, and ‘the cultural novice’, in order to lay bare the complexity of what it means to work and live in China as a foreign university teacher and be recognised as different. This research focuses on notions 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 a foreign expert. The conceptual framework underpinning my auto-ethnographical research is constructed from a theoretical approach that is emergent and cross-disciplinary, and incorporates cultural, social, postcolonial and feminist theory in relation to the paradoxical and ambivalent nature of difference. That is, this work attempts to make sense of what it means to live and teach in a location where everything is foreign, including myself. My research methodology employs critically reflective writing that acknowledges the multiplicity of historical, cultural and social differences, whilst recognising that difference, at its heart, is a matter of relationship/s. In particular I use memoir and poetry as an auto-ethnographic device for blurring the boundaries between self and other, and to evoke particular moods, emotions and images that work towards destabilising any essentialist notions of living and working as a foreign university teacher in China. This form of writing as research makes it possible to challenge some of the generalisations western scholars inadvertently make when writing about their teaching experiences in China. In focusing on the specifics of my relationships with Chinese colleagues and students, four in particular, I offer an alternative way of interpreting intercultural relations. Through these relationships I foreground inclusion, exclusion, contradiction and the messiness of everyday life, and ask: who is the Chinese other? Who is the foreigner? What can they teach each other? I have challenged the positivist tradition of narrating history and lived experience as a i whole to cut across any notions that my own stories are accurate representations of ‘Chineseness’ or ‘foreignness’. The nuanced insights I draw inform my life as a university teacher, early career researcher and transnational professional, and may be relevant to the experiences of teachers, whether foreign or local, in a transnational higher education setting. When auto-ethnographers write about the particulars of everyday life, it is not as a way of extrapolating generalisations from such experiences, but in order to unravel how global and local influences are manifested in the specificities of people’s behaviour, and of lived experiences that are marked in people’s flesh and their relations with others. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An affirmation of thankyous from Joy’s heart: —to Associate Professor Maureen Perkins For believing that I had something worthwhile to say and giving me the creative space to discover my writer’s voice. —to Doctor Christina Houen The most inspiring and demanding of mentors, your generosity has overwhelmed me. —to Jane Grellier As becoming auto-ethnographers, always in our interconnectedness, sharing in our explorations and learning along the way, may it long continue. —to Liam Lynch My dear friend and colleague your wisdom, humour, friendship and enormous heart enriches my life. —to Ling Min For a generous heart and a pragmatic approach to life that kept me sane through the most difficult of times. —to Barbara Nattabi The daughter of my heart, you inspire me to strut my stuff and walk the talk. iii —to John Fielder For the many coffees and conversations we have shared, and for contributing so much to my learning as both a researcher and a human being. —to Maureen Gibbons For being an inspiring mentor who helped me claim the poet within. —to Scott Kimpton For the early years, for the solidarity and the building of community; you are gone now but not forgotten. —to Michelle Barrett, Julie Lunn and Peyman Sabet In celebration of our togetherness as doctoral students, for your unstinting support and for the wonderful camaraderie we shared. —to Marilyn Metta For your generosity of spirit and for all that you have done and continue to do for me. —to Roz Hanley For sharing China with me and having faith in my work. —to Robin Davidson For the gift of your eloquent voice so that I might hear the breath of those words that were the most difficult to write. —to Joan Manning Whose love and friendship goes beyond the call; for always being there and sharing in my laughter and tears. iv —to Chen Zeng Hao A special and most compassionate man who encouraged me to imagine the unimaginable and find my own calling… —to my beautiful sons Leon and Adon Bound together by blood and love I dedicate this work to you. v CONTENTS DECLARATION ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS vi EMBROIDERING MYSELF INTO OTHERNESS: AN AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY OF BORDER-CROSSING “Re-stitching the Voice” or New Curriculum for Embroidery 1 INTRODUCTION 2 Positioning my voice at the centre of my work 2 Awakening to China 4 Background relational threads 7 Sketching the research canvas 9 CHAPTER ONE 13 Creating the Writing Space The performance of words 13 Word stitching my way into knowing with auto-ethnography 14 The entangled ‘I’ as autobiographical ethnography 15 vi A research writing that can be evocative, vulnerable and 16 heartfelt Using memoir to write auto-ethnography 17 Memoir—capturing fragments of my life between worlds 17 Silence and laughter speak louder than words 19 The use of poetic devices to represent the Chinese voice 22 How memoir and poetry speaks 24 Struggling with Chinese history and how it influences 25 the way I write The writing self’s relationship with history 26 Embroidery as a metaphor for a way of writing and the 32 embodiment of the research performance - The art of embroidery and discourse 34 - The art of bricolage 36 - Loose threads as supplementary footnotes 37 Theoretical strands 37 - The art of being a vulnerable researcher, between 38 states of being - The foreigner, the ambiguous, ambivalent nature 41 of difference and being different - The threads that bind us—power and resistance 44 Conclusion 46 CHAPTER TWO 47 The Ambivalent Foreigner Attempting to understand the other that is not me 47 Preface 48 Anchoring my position: A beginning of sorts… 50 A lack of connecting threads 57 Not living up to expectations: Life as a site of struggle 60 vii The ambivalent nature of specialness 74 Embroidering a space between 79 CHAPTER THREE 84 The Ambivalent Foreigner continued: Underlying Relational Threads Foreigner in the city 84 The ritual of writing and the dilemmas we face when writing 85 about self and other/s Insiders as relational outsiders—the foreigner resides within us all 89 The complexity of one’s close and distant relations with others 92 Personal strands of a professional relationship 94 Attempting to make do 96 A taste of double happiness—an erotic encounter 98 The relational eye—the art of seeing 101 Endings and beginnings 106 Life without Mr ‘Fix It’ 111 Coda 115 CHAPTER FOUR 118 The Cultural Novice: Teacher and Student relations and confusions An act of re-discovery: Wild mind groping in the gap 118 Prelude 119 The poetic as a device for problematising how I write 120 Theoretical framework 122 From one foreign space to another 125 The question is not who is the other but who am I? 126 Where am I in relation to the other? 128 Stitching meaning from experiential threads of difference 130 viii Discovering aspects of self through the Chinese other 133 The blurring of boundaries 140 A reflection on a desire to be ethical 145 Strands of ethics and morality: Is it just a question of 147 professional practice? A gathering of cacophonic, euphonic and empathic voices 148 speak out Is it just a question of professional practice? Continues… 154 On being vulnerable 156 CHAPTER FIVE 159 Relational Differences are Embroidered with the Personal Mental embroidery as the art of becoming 159 Introduction 160 The embodiment of thinking and learning—the beginning 161 Learning to think—an enigmatic experience 164 The cultural novice and the historied performance of silence 165 Uncovering of our feelings of being out of place 167 The underside of relational closeness 174 Writing the storied body as a way of coming to know 177 CONCLUSION 180 LOOSE THREADS 184 REFERENCES 209 ix Embroidering Myself into Otherness: An Auto-ethnographic Inquiry of Border-crossing “Re-stitching the Voice” or New Curriculum for Embroidery In solitude I contemplate the self—edge—of—voice where distortion lies. Beneath the slippery surface voices within an invisible hem will ensnare; the strongest of warps will silence. With hem ripper I pierce the embroidered flesh and soul of voice. Unpicking blind stitches that bind us the unraveling of conflicting voices begins. Using needle and threads of resistance I anchor my position with trusty knot.