Navigating Academia as a Transnational Scholar from the Global South: Treasuring All the Knowledges(Insider Guides to Success in Academia)

This book centers on the stories of transnational early-career scholars from the Global South who started their postgraduate studies as adult immigrants and international students. This is a fascinating guide to navigating academia for those whose biographies and educational trajectories are not fully recognized by the traditional academia. Inspired by and rooted in Indigenous epistemologies, women of colour feminism, and decolonial studies, the 16 different authors - each transnational scholars from the Global South - consider the knowledge systems brought from home that helped them to navigate academia in a foreign country and the knowledges they wished they had before entering postgraduate study. Chapters cover: Overcoming internalized fears and the lack of a sense of belonging. Recognizing the diverse and abundant knowledges that transnational scholars bring to academia. Building healthy relationships with advisors and mentors. Dealing with unexpected events outside of academia while away from home. Seeking jobs during and after the postgraduate degree. Including contributions from leading transnational academics and supported by letters, poems, and drawings, this book serves as a source of information and inspiration for transnational early-career scholars navigating academia. ‘Insider Guides to Success in Academia’ offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often-implicit rules of the game – the things you need to know but usually aren’t told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors – and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.

Table of Contents:
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

About the Author :
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.

Review :
"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