I’ve hoped to study abroad for a while because I want to grow my language skills and be immersed in a new culture. Prior to class this week, I had never considered the commercialized and often entitled nature of study abroad programs, but now that we’ve read such an informative article called “Selling the World” and had a meaningful discussion, I cannot help but consider study abroad in a new light. I’m not someone who views study abroad as an inherent right, and I am very aware of the privilege of thinking in that way. Obviously, money is a huge factor, one that often sets people ahead of others because of inherent privilege.
The rhetoric of becoming a global citizen bothered me a lot. One cannot magically become a global citizen from living in a different country for three months. There are nearly 200 countries in the world, and one cannot become a global citizen from traveling to a single one and living there for a relatively short period of time. What’s more, becoming a global citizen is a life-long process of learning and growing. It cannot be reduced to an experience that occurs in a quarter of a third of a year, and nor should it be something you can purchase by choosing one program over another etc.
I think the idea of selling experiences, is, in itself, problematic. A company cannot guarantee an experience, only an itinerary. One’s experiences abroad are very much determined by oneself and the degree to which one interacts with the locals and their cultures. Some people seek to study abroad as a vacation-like experience which does not sever them from their “American bubble.” This is a very superficial way of viewing the opportunities afforded by study abroad. Like anything, it should be what you decide to make of it, which is what the article highlighted.
I want to be careful, going forward, about the way I engage in dialogue surrounding study abroad. Of course, there will always be people who act entitled to such experiences and who view them as bettering oneself through the exotification of other cultures, but I do not want to partake in the commercialization of culture and of travel experiences in such a way. I want to study abroad to learn and to immerse myself in a new culture, not to be able to post photos on Instagram and say “I went here.”
