Just finished re-reading “Being Across Homes” it explores this idea of how we are different people in different places. As an international educator I feel like I have many different homes. The place my parents consider home is in Ontario, my home is now in Singapore, but a place that will always sort of be home is Phnom Penh (pictured above). While all those places played a vital role in shaping who I am, and who I was, but I feel like each place I was also a somewhat different person.
A lot of the article talks about how community shapes us by giving us social clues, or opportunities to be who we are, or become who we are supposed to become. The people around us help mold us and help give us clues on how to act, and we respond differently to these cues in the different places we are in. While much of this did not delve deeply into how places shapes us as people, it did talk a lot about how we are different people in different places.
From this idea I was wondering about the importance of a true self, or most true self. Is there a person we are “supposed” to be, or static kind of true who we are? Or do the places and people around us continue to shape us and help us grow. From what I read, fundamentally we have specific characteristics, but can we actually embody other forms of action based on where we are and who is around us?
Hubard, O. (2011). Being across Homes. Teachers College Record, 113(6), 1255-1274.
Joe Teft 