Navigating Academia as a Transnational Scholar from the Global South

Roxana Chiappa Baros is an assistant professor in the Department of Education at the University of Tarapacá, Chile.Iris Viveros Avendaño is an independent researcher affiliated with the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington, USA.

• Introduction 1. Acknowledging the roots, motivations, and historical conditions that are part of who we are 2. Abundance: Treasuring the knowledges learned at home in the process of transnational mobility 3. Seeing clearly: Confronting internalized complex of inferiority in academia 4. Building healthy relationships with advisors and mentors who grew up in other cultures 5. Living as a (trans)national scholar while responding to the demands of academia 6. Seeking a job during and after postgraduate degrees 7. Lessons learned

"Using a refreshing multi-genre and translanguaging approach involving visual art, poetry, dialogues and text, Roxana Chiappa and Iris Viveros provide 14 women and gender non-confirming scholars with the relational space in this edited collection to foreground the immense knowledge and wisdom First Nations and Southern academics bring to universities. Their stories of courage, resilience and resistance will inspire readers and create opportunities for solidarity across cultural differences."Catherine Manathunga, Co-Director of the UniSC Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre, Professor of Education Research at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia."Navigating Academia as a Transnational Scholar from the Global South: Treasuring all the Knowledges is a beautiful, moving, and informative book. It is full of compelling stories about how transnational scholars from the Global South navigate Western academies. Using enticing poems, short vignettes, dialogues, stories, art and essays, the contributors show us vividly how and why both dreams and disappointments shaped their future. There are many lovely features of the book, including sensibilities about intercultural and ethnic interactions across a range of different landscapes: advisor/advisee relationships, classroom interactions, first encounters, the imposter syndrome, plus the significance of Indigenous knowledges-based on ways of knowing, being and doing.The book, edited by Roxana Chiappa and Iris Viveros Avendano, is both humane and inspirational. Grounded in scholarship and written in clear language and meaningful modes of storytelling, the experiences of professional women from Africa, Asia and Latin America unfold before our eyes. The volume explores what it is like to grapple with class, gender, privilege, and hierarchy while offering practical, sensible ways for women to expand their knowledge and information-based skills - Indigenous and otherwise.Part of the book’s captivating power is its ability to weave the anguish of the contributors in a balanced, but impactful manner. Scholars and practitioners from the Global South and elsewhere should be enriched by the serious-minded and self-reflective tapestry of stories in this must-read book."Dr. Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, Indiana University, Author of Empathy in the Global World: An Intercultural Perspective and coauthor of Intercultural Communication between Chinese and Americans. "The book encourages us to question the established hierarchies within academic and scientific institutions that have long favored Western and Anglo-Saxon perspectives. Today's universities prioritize productivity and individual success where emphasizing collaborative methods of understanding and recognizing diverse cultural approaches to knowledge, education and learning can be rather difficult. The emphasis on individualism restricts our chances to collaborate and acknowledge that much of our knowledge comes from the relationships we cultivate over time. This book illustrates the small acts of defiance against the individualistic norms of academia and resilience in times of global conflicts and escalation of violence, which can serve as important resistance steps, critical not only for navigating diverse academic spaces but for fundamentally transforming them."Dr. Larisa Kasumagić-Kafedžić, Professor, University of Sarajevo, Peace Education Hub, Bosnia and Herzegovina.“A must-read in the turbulent waters of change in higher education, this book offers strategies from visionaries whose insights open pluriversal methods, reminding the academy of the vibrant solutions that undervalued forms of knowledge often generate. These “storytellers of futures of collective liberations” have honed their abundant skills on the rough edges of the academy and recognize that its revitalization is rooted in poetry, music, meditative practice, and community gathering. Guiding as a compact compass, brimming with hard-won wisdom from those charting new courses, this book of collective voices slips easily into a pocket or pack, ready to be consulted throughout one’s academic voyage—from the very beginning through every stage that follows. Created for students and mentors, and filled with healing practical guidance and consejos, Treasuring All the Knowledges offers a collective remedy to the isolation and hierarchies of academic life.”Michelle Habell-Pallán, Professor, Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, and Director, Certificate in Public Critical Race Scholarship, University of Washington, USA.