Challenging the comfort zone

Self-discovery, everyday practices and international student mobility to the Global South

Bibliographic Data

ID7921092
AuthorsLaura Prazeres (0000-0001-5574-2798, University of St Andrews, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume12
Issue6
Pages908-923
Publication date2017-11-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMobilities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1745-0101 • E-ISSN: 1745-011X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17450101.2016.1225863
OpenAlexW2555169985
LanguageEN
Citations received46
References cited65

This paper scrutinises the underlying motivations of short-term international students by unpacking the notion of ‘leaving the comfort zone’ for self-discovery and self-change. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Canadian exchange students volunteering and studying in the Global South, the paper contributes to scholarship on everyday and emotional geographies of international student mobility and wider debates in mobility by examining how emotions of comfort and discomfort as well as everyday practices are productive for self-discovery, belonging, home-making and distinction. It reveals how students align the boundaries of their comfort zone and an un/reflexive self along the international and imaginative borders of the Global North/South. Contrary to tourism and mobility studies, I argue that students view everyday life and their relative immobility while abroad as both a distinctive and reflexive exercise. I suggest that students want to extend the boundaries of their comfort zone and their sense of ‘home’ to the Global South

Epistemology · Everyday life · Mobilities · Political science · Reflexivity · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Tourism · Gender Studies · Global Education and Multiculturalism · International Student and Expatriate Challenges · Psychology · Social Psychology · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

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