Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
School
School of Education
First Supervisor
Dr. Maggie McAlinden
Second Supervisor
Dr. Anne Thwaite
Third Supervisor
Associate Professor Nicola Johnson
Abstract
This research explores the identity negotiation of TESOL academic returnee lecturers who returned to their home country, Indonesia, after finishing their Master or PhD study at several universities in western countries. The returnee lecturers had all been teaching English before being awarded an Indonesian government scholarship to study overseas. When they returned to Indonesia, they all became lecturers at Indonesian higher education institutions. Studies on transnational academic mobility and language teacher identity exist but those that particularly focus on the identity of language teachers as academic returnees remain limited. In addition to this, language teachers and/or mobile academics from Indonesia are under investigated. The goal of this ecological and transdisciplinary study was to investigate the ways academic returnee lecturers negotiate their identities and to identify the underpinning ideologies of their identity negotiation within the context of their working places.
Using an ethnographic approach, data were gathered from six Indonesian academic returnee lecturers who were working in three different higher education institutions on the island of Java. Interviews, digital observations and participants’ social media posts were used as sources of data, collected online, because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Interactional sociolinguistics analysis and critical discourse analysis were carried out on the data. Data were interpreted in the light of the ecological and transdisciplinary framework of language teacher identity, which is complemented with the concepts of indexicality, polycentricity, and moral behavioural script. Findings showed that participants negotiated their identities through various discursive practices: (1) the bifurcated lens, in order to make sense of their struggle in feeling morally incompatible with the academic culture in Indonesian higher education institutions; (2) enabling or disabling the possibility of hybrid identity; and (3) enacting a different aspect of their identity, which was the identity of being a good Muslim. The two strongest ideologies that underpinned participants’ identity negotiation were neoliberalism and Javanese filial piety and harmony.
The study makes several contributions to knowledge. One, it makes methodological contributions towards the research fields of transnational academic mobility and language teacher identity using a digital ethnographic approach, especially collecting participants’ social media posts, which has not yet been incorporated in many studies. Second, it makes iv theoretical contributions to transnational academic mobility research by placing identity as the core of the research framework and identifying neoliberalism as one of the core underpinning ideologies in the returnees’ reintegration process. This thesis also contributes to the field of language teacher identity research by incorporating the concepts of indexicality, polycentricity and moral behavioural scripts when exploring teachers’ identity negotiation or identity work. In addition, this research highlights how teachers’ religious identity and the challenges of a home country’s social structure are significant in the process of returnee lecturer reintegration. The study identifies implications for future Indonesian academic returnees, Indonesian government scholarship institutions, the executives in Indonesian higher education institutions, and the Human Resource Department in these institutions. These institutions could support returnee lecturers by providing programs, which includes debriefing sessions and continuous peer support and mentorship.
DOI
10.25958/3e4y-1f26
Access Note
Access to this thesis is embargoed until 6 June 2028
Recommended Citation
Siregar, Y. D. (2024). An ecological and transdisciplinary ethnographic study of Indonesian TESOL returnee lecturer identity. Edith Cowan University. https://doi.org/10.25958/3e4y-1f26