Growing up (un)bounded: globalization, mobility and belonging among Korean third culture kids

ABSTRACT This study speaks to the larger question of how mobile upbringing that spans tensions between multiple communities across the globe influences one’s construction of identity and belonging. In this paper, I examine how young adults who have been living in multiple countries in their formative years- most prominently referred to as Third Culture Kids -reflect upon their transnational life trajectories. With a particular focus on their construction of identity and belonging vis-à-vis language, literacy, and culture, I pair the concept of capital (Bourdieu, 1986) with habitus (Appadurai,1996; Bourdieu,1991). My analyses suggest that Third Culture Kids foregrounded multilingual competence and diversity in articulating their mobile upbringing, and they finally chose to live in the US in addition to maintaining transnational ties with Korea in their adulthood. Their sense of belonging to the US was cultivated as a response to feelings of estrangement from Korean society, where they are privileged in terms of social class but feel excluded due to the high cultural esteem for ethnic solidarity among local Koreans. With the growing number of transnational communities that mobilize funds of knowledge from heterogenic resources across the globe, this study highlights the need for educators to incorporate students’ funds of knowledge into language and literacy curriculum.