Friends, colleagues, please join us for the June instalment of our Deakin Anthropology Seminar Series 2018, presented by Dr Jessica Walton, of Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation. The seminar will be followed by drinks at The Edge, 6/8 Eastern Beach Rd, Geelong.
Date: Thursday 7 June
Time: 4:00-5:30pm
Location: Deakin Waterfront AD1.122
(Also, by videoconference, at Deakin Burwood F2.009, Deakin Downtown, and VMP ARTSED SHSS 39354)
Distant friendship: Playful connections among Australian and Korean students in global on-line collaborative learning exchanges
The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into Australian and South Korean students’ experiences and perspectives of their participation in a global on-line collaborative learning exchange by drawing on theories of play and friendship. This paper is based on fieldwork conducted from 2016-2017 in South Korea and Australia at two primary schools and includes in-depth interviews with Grade 5 and Grade 6 students. Key research questions which this paper engages with are: How does an ethnographic understanding of friendship and playful modes of engagement provide a deeper understanding of interactions with distant peers in spaces of ‘intercultural learning’? In what ways might an understanding of children’s experiences of friendship and play rather than a limited focus on cross-cultural knowledge acquisition open up possibilities for the consideration of more open and less staid connections with culturally different peers?
Biography: Jessica Walton is a Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia). Her research is inter-disciplinary in scope with particular interests in the anthropology/sociology of education, race and ethnic relations, and migration. Recent publications include book chapters titled, “‘I am Korean’: Contested belonging in a ‘multicultural’ Korea” (In C. Halse, Ed. Interrogating belonging for young people in schools, Palgrave Macmillan) and “Beyond ‘getting along’: Understanding embodied whiteness in educational spaces” (In G. Vass, J. Maxwell, S. Rudolph & K. Gulson, Eds., The relationality of race and racism in education, Routledge). Jessica is an Associate Editor (Culture, Power and Education) for the Journal of Intercultural Studies and convenor of the Oceania Ethnography & Education Network (https://oeenetwork.wordpress.com).