Immigrant Student Identities: How Bakhtin and Hermans' Theories Conceptualize their Fluidity


Immigrant Student Identities: How Bakhtin and Hermans' Theories Conceptualize their Fluidity
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Author: Zhou, Xiaodi
Journal: Journal of Globalization Studies. Volume 7, Number 2 / November 2016

This essay discusses how Bakhtin's conception of double-voicedness and cultural identities, along with Hermans's theories of I-positionality and subjectivities, helps frame researchers' characterization of immigrant students' complex and fluid identities. This age of globalization has increased the number and dimensions of positions anyone can assume. Immigrant identities, particularly students, can especially be conceptualized as dynamic and in flux, fluctuating between at least two cultural positions. Sometimes their transnational identities can be conceived as hybridized and dialogic between these cultural norms.

Keywords:Bakhtin, Hermans, double-voicedness, I-positions, cultural identity, globalization, cultural hybridity, transnationalism.