On a (More) Equal Footing: Bridging ‘the West’ & ‘the Arab World’ Through Virtual Exchange

Abstract

Misunderstanding and harmful stereotyping have become commonplace amongst people in the United States and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region since 2001, if not earlier. If universities are the locus of transformative education, work remains towards remedying these issues.One non-profit organisation, “Natafaham (pseudonym, Arabic for « we understand each other”), works to undo this negativity student by student. It brings participants from the MENA and Europe/North America into dialogue via Zoom each week. The inter-cultural dialogue availed to participants is empowering to actors, including the dialogue facilitator. This narrative is an autoethnographic exploration of my experience as an intercultural dialogue facilitator. Yet reviewing contemporaneous notes and reflections revealed structural aspects of this programme that empower voices from the MENA region, while facilitating learning amongst participants on both sides of the Atlantic. Such aspects include the format and the location of the programme, its focus on individuals rather than institutions or groups, its mixed top-down and bottom-up approach, and the opportunities it avails for ascension to positions of authority. This narrative analyses these aspects through several lenses and academic traditions, including those of global citizenship, critical internationalisation, (reciprocal) global service learning, and socio-cultural frameworks of second language acquisition. The chapter urges that these aspects are recognised as key catalysts of (more) equal relationships between youth in the MENA region and the United States, which merit widespread replication. It concludes by envisioning a still more equal relationship predicated upon more equitable language usage.

Citation

Anderson, R.W. (2024), "On a (More) Equal Footing: Bridging ‘the West’ & ‘the Arab World’ Through Virtual Exchange", Woldegiorgis, E.T. and Yu, C.Q. (Ed.) Critical Reflections on the Internationalisation of Higher Education in the Global South (Diverse Perspectives on Creating a Fairer Society), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 141-161. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80455-778-520241008