Global South Sisterhood in a Virtual Exchange
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: We are two women international students from the Global South, situated in Turkey and the U.S. respectively. In this article, we utilized collaborative autoethnography to critically reflect on our intellectual, emotional, linguistic, and cultural growth during a virtual exchange program that we participated in during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this co-exploration, we analyzed our experiences and reflections as participants in a COIL program to consider, more broadly, the evolution and trajectory of virtual mobility in an uneven higher education landscape. Our virtual exchange emerged as a digital and transnational third space, unbounded by hegemonic epistemic, linguistic, or geographical borders. We learned about the vibrant and thriving cultural traditions, thought traditions, and religious/spiritual traditions of Turkmenistan and India, our home countries. Through technologies such as Zoom and WhatsApp, we discovered each other’s personalities and backgrounds, centering sisterhood and friendship along the way. We framed our analysis through a critical internationalization perspective, delineating the challenges and limitations of normative virtual exchanges and arguing for transformative exchanges that honor and affirm the epistemologies of the Global South.
DOI: 10.32674/prd4ky72
Authors: Bhavika Sicka, Arzu Atajanova
Institution: Old Dominion University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4404897247