2020 Virtual Symposium

Keynote Presentation: Finding “Homes” While Going “Global”:  A Southeast Asian American Perspective

What does it mean to find a “home” in a place where one is treated as a guest?  What does it mean to undertake a study of a part of the world that’s not your “home?”  In this keynote presentation, Prof. Rick Bonus talks about the prospects and challenges of answering these questions by sharing some lessons he and his students learned in doing study abroad trips to the Philippines. This presentation spans a conversation on “homes,” studying abroad, Southeast Asian American identities, and ethical practices in transnational exchanges.

Professor Bonus is Chair of American Ethnic Studies and a faculty member in the Southeast Asia Program at University of Washington, Seattle. His work explores conjunctions among ethnic studies, American studies, Pacific Islander Studies, and Southeast Asian studies, particularly as they deal with the historical and contemporary phenomena of migration, transnationalism, interdisciplinary work, and multicultural pedagogy.

Virtual Symposium

Introduction  |  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our collaborative 2020 field school was cancelled, but students instead conducted a cultural exchange with Indonesian peer participants in small groups through videoconferencing. Each group was focused on a broad social theme that allowed for coequal discussion and exchange on cultural similarities and differences, while informing Puget Sound students' course work on campus. Students exchanged and discussed literature on their theme over the course of several Zoom meetings, as well as drawing on auto-ethnographic narratives from their own lived experience. You can read more about the virtual exchange 

Video Reflections  |  As a component of the exchange, students recorded reflection videos in which they were asked to discuss (1) what insights they gained from the experience regarding cultural similarity and difference in their group (broadly speaking), (2) what they learned about their particular theme/topic that you wouldn't have without the collaborative experience, and (3) what they learned about themselves and their own cultural background through their collaborative discussions. This virtual symposium below is made possible by participants who volunteered to make their video reflections available on our site, to share their thoughts and feelings on the experience.