Final Reflection

 I am Canadian, so I have traveled to various parts of Canada (Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia). I go to Quebec at least yearly to visit family. I have also traveled to Europe multiple times. I lived in Berlin for a year when I was 10 and spent a month in Istanbul when I was 9, and still remember both of those experiences. During my year in Berlin, I also traveled to other countries in Europe (France, Hungary, Denmark, Norway) with my family. Since then, I have traveled to Berlin twice, Italy, and France alone. I also spent a month in Leipzig and visited Prague with my father when I was 13. I have experience traveling and being in new and potentially uncomfortable cultural/linguistic situations, and I love trying new things. When my family moved to Berlin for a year when I was in fourth grade, I was put into a public German school. I did not speak German, but although it was socially and academically challenging at first, I managed to pick up the language and was fluent by the end of the year. I made close friends and stayed with their families when I returned to Berlin alone for two weeks the next summer to visit my class. Three years later, I returned to Germany with my father for a month and was placed into a German high school in Leipzig. I had lost most of my German, but I figured it out and the language came back quickly. Through these experiences, I learned to navigate situations in which I felt uncomfortable and like I didn't fit in. I was able to make friends and learn about and immerse myself in the language and culture of the place I was in. As a result of this prior international experience, I felt that ISP would be a good and interesting fit for me at UF.

I started at UF as a Family, Youth, and Community Sciences major, but in the fall of my second year, I switched my major to anthropology and started doing research in medical anthropology. My anthropology classes have taken a much more critical approach to societal issues—looking at things in a way that allows for an international, feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial perspective. This increased international focus also pushed me to join ISP and turn my attention toward international experience and education. I have realized that although I still want to work with people on an individual level, I don't want to work within systems and institutions that perpetuate inequality and suffering. I want to keep learning, keep discussing, keep researching, and eventually do work that not only helps those who need it most, but also prevents the toxic cycles in our society from repeating themselves.

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My participation in ISP has encouraged me to reflect more on my own global identity, and the forces that shape it. International issues have many dimensions, but the subject of language is significant for me. My family is from Montreal, in the province of Quebec in Canada. Although I was raised mostly outside of Quebec, I was taught French and English by my Francophone mother and Anglophone father. When my family returns to Quebec, as we do one or two times a year, it has always been an opportunity for me to refresh my French, but recently I have been using English more and more in the city and province. Most large cities are multilingual to some degree, but Montreal is even more so (the official language of the city could be considered franglais). The city and the province it is in have many laws and policies surrounding language use. Quebec is a Francophone province in an Anglophone country, and that is not an easy status to maintain, especially as people from all over Canada and the world move to Quebec and Montreal in droves. Language is heavily tied to social identity in this context, as even though the majority of the population is bilingual, many people’s housing, relational, and employment choices are based on which language they feel a stronger allegiance to. In my case, for example, even though I live in Florida and my English is far stronger than my French, my identity as a Canadian and as Quebecoise is much more strongly tied to the Francophone community. If I moved to Montreal (as I hope to next year), I would certainly try to live and work in a more Francophone area, and my family would certainly be disappointed and confused if I were to choose a more Anglophone area instead.
 

As I mentioned earlier, I was hesitant about international research because I wasn't sure how I felt about studying other cultures—particularly African cultures. I was worried about feeling or coming off as colonialist or like I'm taking advantage of or exotifying them in some way. My dad’s family is from Saskatchewan, Canada, which has a large First Nations/Indigenous population. A few years ago, I was in Saskatoon by myself visiting my grandfather and his wife. They took me to a First Nations powwow outside of the city—presumably on a reservation. They apparently had friends in the community and had been to a few powwows before, but I had never been and didn’t know anyone except for them. We sat with their friends and watched the ceremony/dance, but at some point, they had us (as the only white people, we were clearly the outsiders) come into the circle of performers. They began a ritual that involved burning sage and cleansing people by waving the smoke around them, and they wanted (or felt obligated?) to include us. Some of the other sage smoke recipients were asked what they wanted cleansing from, and the answers were mostly substance abuse, financial stress, depression, and losses in the family. I remember feeling so guilty—not only did I not have any stressors in my life, but my lack of stressors (and my ancestors’ lack of stressors) was due to the suffering of the First Nations people. I felt like my presence in that situation was doing more harm than good. I understand international research in anthropology better now than I used to, and I see how the cross-cultural element of it is very important. My experiences with ISP have helped me see the benefits of international connection, and ISP has pushed me to increase my involvement with the Center for African Studies, which has given me a more informed perspective on my research, which is situated in East Africa.