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Writing the local-global: An ethnography of friction and negotiation in an English-using Indonesian Ph.D. program
Abstract
Suresh Canagarajah, John Trimbur, Bruce Horner, and others argue that U.S. scholars must begin imagining their academic institutions as part of larger global English conversations, which would involve expanding Western perceptions of “good writing” to allow for the cultural and ideological differences implied by the term “global.” Horner and Trimbur, for instance, urge compositionists to take an “internationalist perspective” to writing instruction, to ask, “whose English and whose interests it serves” in relation to the “dynamics of globalization” (624). To better understand what it means to write internationally in English, I conducted ethnographic research at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), a self-identified “Indonesian, international, interreligious Ph.D. program,” in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. My ten-month ethnographic project, which drew from teacher research, interviews with students and faculty, and student texts, suggests that English, though linked to Western cultural imperialism—and thus Western ideology— can no longer be considered solely a Western language, useful only for Western purposes and audiences.
Subject Area
English as a Second Language|Rhetoric
Recommended Citation
Engelson, Amber, "Writing the local-global: An ethnography of friction and negotiation in an English-using Indonesian Ph.D. program" (2011). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI3482619.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3482619