NARRATIVES OF DISPLACEMENT TOLD BY EXCHANGE STUDENTS IN MINAS GERAIS: IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN SOCIOCULTURAL IN- BETWEENNESS / NARRATIVAS DE DESLOCAMENTO DE ESTUDANTES DE INTERCÂMBIO NO INTERIOR DE MINAS GERAIS: CONSTRUÇÕES IDENTITÁRIAS DE ENTRE-LUGAR SOCIOCULTURAL

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

02/09/2011

RESUMO

This research focuses on the analysis of narratives of displacement told by exchange students who take part in an international exchange program, in small and medium-sized cities in Minas Gerais. The program brings high school students from different countries to Brazil and sends Brazilian students to other countries, so that these students experience another culture for one year. This study aims at showing: i) the nature of the co-constructed narratives in research interviews, with collective and individual experience tellings and retellings of displacement processes; ii) the identity constructions of self and others, in relation to family, school, Portuguese language learning, especially in the cultural in-betweenness, which involves the decision of taking part in the exchange program, the trip and the arrival; the contact and daily communication with Brazilians in the cities they lived and trips throughout Brazil; the return to their countries and the reception from relatives and friends. The theoretical approach intends to articulate narratives of displacement, vis-à-vis Narrative Theories, with the sociocultural in-betweenness. Narratives of displacement involve orientation in social worlds, displacement and spatialization practices, and institutional displacements; they are articulated in the interactional order, together with big and small narratives. The cultural in-betweenness sets limits between us and them, as well as new forms of sociability and fluidity in the social relations. The methodological nature of this research is qualitative and interpretive. Ethnomethodological and sociolinguistic based interviews were conducted in group and individually; face-to-face and mediated by computer, with typing and voice resources in a longitudinal process; with six exchange students ¿ two NorthAmericans, a Danish, two Belgians and a Mexican ¿ who lived in Minas Gerais, from 2007 to 2008. The constructed data are complex, as far as the interviews involved code switching. The first interviews were conducted in English, then in two languages ¿ English/Portuguese, Spanish/Portuguese ¿ and the last ones in Portuguese. The transcription tries to reproduce this code switching. In the data analysis, the relation between small and big narratives that are co-constructed in research interviews in the displacement process is highlighted. The positionings constructed in the group interview are brought up by the researcher-interviewer in the individual interviews, as a way of exploring previously mentioned events and getting evaluations from participants. In the beginning, the students represent themselves as established members of their own cultures and outsiders in relation to Brazil and they also show negative stereotypes. Throughout the exchange program, there is an in-between cultural positioning, indicating their adaptation to Brazilian life style and culture. The stereotypes, though maintained, are not treated as a dyad superior-inferior, but in equal terms, with changes in their social perceptions. Here and there, constructed in the narratives, show the opposition between established and outsiders, vis-à-vis their living with families, participation in school, daily routine, the difficulties in establishing friendship and in communicating in Portuguese. How far the participants achieve the aims of the cultural exchange program of experiencing and learning a new culture is questioned.

ASSUNTO(S)

narratives of displacement narrativas no contexto de entrevistas de pesquisa research interview narratives entrevista de pesquisa sociolinguistica narrativas de deslocamento sociolinguistic research interview

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