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As emerging scholars of color with transnational backgrounds, we collectively recount our socialization experiences in US higher education institutes. We explore moments of betweenness as catalysts for envisioning a more inclusive academia that operates beyond the tokenism of diversity.

Employing betweener autoethnography (Diversi and Moreira, 2018), we inquire into the sense of impasse encountered by South Korean female emerging scholars in the field of education in becoming an outsider within the academic system.

Chronicling our shifts in perspectives of our positionality, we interweave inquiries motivating us to challenge normative pressures and map our betweener experiences onto the Wiedman and DeAngelo’s (2020) socialization model. Through this process, we wedge open in-between spaces in the socialization process that accommodate the nuanced positionality of transnational scholars.

Integrating postcolonial critiques on the Western-centric meritocratic academia, this piece sheds light on the complexity and fluidity of emerging transnational scholars’ socialization processes. The thick, nuanced description deepens the understanding of the complexity of their identity negotiation within the dominant logics of academia. Our inquiries interwoven through betweener autoethnography serve as guidance for mentoring international graduate students and transnational scholars.

This article is an autoethnography that describes an emotional journey of writing and; presenting a conference paper. While it is a personal story being told, it is a story that speaks to many other minorities in academia who continuously need to legitimize their voices in the midst of the dominant colonialist perspective. The intention of writing this autoethnography is to speak to the feelings of otherness experienced, to disrupt the traditional academic voice (Pathak, 2010), and to allow for the expression of a reality that is often hidden to those with a colonialist frame (Mohanty, 2003).

This article uses autoethnography as a methodology to reveal a personal story. Since autoethnographies help us make sense of our fragmented lives, the journey is told in chronological segments, detailing the emotions leading up to the conference presentation and its aftermath.

The findings of the article expose some of the colonialist frameworks that are still embedded in academia. They also lie in the revelation of the “spectacle of otherness” endured in the process. Drawing the reader into the author's mind and heart with the intention of understanding the other is an important part of this paper.

The first contribution of this paper lies in its decolonizing project, where Western knowledge systems and their epistemologies are the object of inquiry. The second contribution of the paper lies in its attempt to write intersectional research that does not impose predetermined categories of analysis but writes beyond specific classifications of identity. Finally, it also lies in celebrating the subjective self as a place that is worth exploring.

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for the strength of qualitative work, but more specifically for various kinds of ethnographies.

The authors argue that global neoliberal and audit culture policies have crept into academic research, tertiary education practice, and research culture.

The authors then discuss major tenets of and make the case for the use of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies as caring practices and research method(ologies) that may in fact push back against such hegemonic neoliberal practices in the academy. Finally, the authors link these caring types of ethnographies to the papers within this special issue.

This is an original look at the concepts of auto-, duo-, and collaborative-ethnographies with relation to caring practices.

This paper aims to revisit the debate on the insider-outsider positionality of the researcher in conducting qualitative research by highlighting the challenges of researching sexual harassment and harassment among stigmatized or hidden groups of individuals in a culturally value-laden backdrop in South Asia.

The authors drew on a bricolage of methods to analyze and write this paper. First, the authors borrowed from the case study approach to select three research projects that would shed light on the argument raised in the study. Then, narratives, together with self and critical reflexivity were used to write reflective narratives, which served as data for this paper. Next, the authors used the thematic analysis method to analyze the reflective narratives. Finally, the authors drew from literature and the experiences to provide recommendations for the challenges thus identified.

The critical reflections highlight three overarching challenges the authors encountered as insider-outsiders in researching a sensitive topic among stigmatized/hidden groups in a value-laden cultural backdrop: 1) difficulty in recruitment, 2) internalized gender norms and 3) unconscious biases. Based on these challenges, the authors posit that what is pertinent is not whether a researcher is an insider, outsider or in-betweener per se, but how to maximize benefits and minimize pitfalls of being an insider or outsider and employing other means of overcoming the drawbacks. The authors also claim that being more sensitive to the culture, reflexive, flexible and experienced would help overcome challenges faced when conducting research of this nature as insiders-outsiders.

There appears to be little empirically derived inquiry on the insider-outsider positionality of the researchers at the intersection of sensitive topics, stigmatized participants and culture. Our reflections and suggestions address this lacuna while revisiting the simplistic use of insider-outsider dichotomy and proposing other means to overcome the drawbacks brought on by the researcher positionality.

Disability is a multivalent, fluid concept that encompasses a broad set of phenomena that shape the experiences of individuals as they interact with others; social systems and processes; and legal structures. A disability identity also encompasses a range of different diagnoses and levels of visibility, which serve to influence whether others perceive a person to have a disability. Recognizing the multivalent nature of disability-as-identity makes it possible to understand more fully the experiences of students with disabilities in higher education institutions. Since there is no single theoretical framework that can account for the multivalent nature of disability identity, we utilize the concept of theoretical borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1987) – spaces where ideas come into conflict with one another – to bring crip theory (Kafer, 2013; McRuer, 2006) and critical queer theory (Muñoz, 1999; Wilchins, 2014) into conversation with each other to explore disability identity. We explore the medical, legal, diagnostic, environmental, social, and cultural dimensions of disability identity, concluding with a call to consider the intersectional nature of disability. We also consider the implications for higher education research and practice.