Wobbling Forward: Vulnerability and Multiple Selves of Transnational Researchers

• In Event: Multiple Selves in Educational Contact Zones: East Asian Academic Experiences Through Dialogical Self Theory

Abstract

This collaborative autoethnography examines how two transnational doctoral students navigate vulnerability as both lived experience and methodological stance within American English Education programs. Through Dialogical Self Theory (DST), we explore how multiple I-positions engage in continuous dialogue, revealing vulnerability not as weakness but as a pathway to authentic scholarship and understanding (Ellis, 2007).

We employ DST, which conceptualizes the self as encompassing multiple I-positions engaged in continuous dialogue (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). This framework enables examination of how our various identities—as immigrants, educators, researchers, cultural interpreters—engage in ongoing positioning relative to others and ourselves (Hermans, 2001). Vulnerability theory provides the methodological register through which these identity interactions become visible and meaningful (Ellis & Bochner, 2010).

Our collaborative autoethnographic approach involved multiple cycles of narrative writing and analytical dialogue (Chang et al., 2016). We independently crafted vulnerability narratives focusing on doctoral experiences, then engaged in iterative dialogue sessions examining resonances and divergences. Our analytical process incorporated DST’s attention to I-positions and meta-positions, tracing dialogue between identity aspects and noting moments of harmony and conflict (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). We traced the dialogue between these positions, noting moments of agreement and conflict, and identifying how vulnerability emerged at points of tension.

Primary data included personal narratives drafted during our doctoral studies, reflective journals, research and teaching documentation, recorded conversations between us and with others, and collaborative dialogue transcripts from Zoom sessions. Secondary data encompassed our lived experiences across different academic contexts and temporal relationships to American academia.

Analysis revealed three recurring dimensions shaping transnational scholarly experience. First, living between worlds creates vulnerabilities as hybrid identities fragment and reconstitute across cultural boundaries (Bhabha, 1994), with linguistic insecurity reflecting racialized assumptions about language legitimacy (Flores & Rosa, 2015). Second, challenging knowledge hierarchies emerged as our extensive teaching experience became systematically devalued within American academic contexts despite demonstrated expertise (Santos, 2014). Third, research as reciprocal exposure transforms methodological vulnerability into epistemological insight, where disclosure becomes meaning-making that reveals patterns invisible to individual experience (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005).

Our findings demonstrate how vulnerability emerges at intersections of conflicting I-positions, creating both challenges and opportunities for growth. Meta-positions enable critical distance from marginalization while maintaining connection to personal and collective histories (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010).

This research challenges deficit-oriented approaches to supporting transnational students (Wang & Nolan, 2024), revealing how institutional interventions often rely on superficial cultural assumptions rather than addressing deeper identity negotiations. We advocate creating spaces where vulnerability can be shared rather than managed, recognizing peer connections among transnational scholars often prove more transformative than formal support services.

By embracing vulnerability as both condition and method, we contribute to expanding conceptualizations of who produces knowledge and how transnational perspectives enrich academic discourse. Our work demonstrates that research grounded in emotional authenticity and intellectual rigor serves ethical imperatives in our interconnected world, providing concrete strategies for fostering academic environments where diverse ways of knowing strengthen scholarship and pedagogy.

Authors

• Eun Bee Ellin Kim, Think & Write / Pacific College of Health and Sciences

• Jing Du, Teachers College, Columbia University