Pour réfléchir.

J'ajouterai éventuellement la version française. 

As a post script, I wish to add here a reflective piece that I was required to do as part of a university course this semester. It captures a little bit more the feelings and some of my understandings that I attempted to lay out in the previously written blog.

It is as follows:

During this reflective piece I am going to be discussing a personal migration experience, specifically in the form of a university exchange. Earlier this year, between January and July 2017, I participated in an exchange in France. I was situated in a town called Tours, in the Loire Valley, with a population of around 150 thousand people. The reason that I point out the population is that, typically speaking, the smaller the town, the less variety in languages you are likely to see. During my experiences, finding French people who spoke English was quite limited, which in itself was not a bad thing as my primary motivation for going to France was indeed to practise my French language skills. It did, in some respects however, provide a barrier between myself and the vast majority of people around me. I feel that I have learnt a sense of empathy towards other immigrants coming to Australia as a result, as they would be thrown into a position where almost the entire country speaks only English.

What I found interesting, at least after having read the chapter on ‘us and them,’ was the discussion of the ‘in-group’. As I was on an exchange, it became increasingly evident that I needed to find people to spend time with. The vast majority of my friendship group became made up of like-minded foreign students. We quickly became acquainted, and I found that making friends with these people was something that happened very quickly, to the point that they became close friends faster than were I to be meeting someone for the first time back at home in Australia. The interesting thing, though, is that in most cases in a situation where the rolls were reversed, these people would have been considered part of the out-group. Non-native English speakers coming from various countries such as Spain, Italy, Germany, etc. would certainly not be considered “the same” or “one of us” in a fashion that was immediate. However, due to the circumstances, I was suddenly on the other foot, considered an outsider, and thrown into a position where I needed to make friends with people who were, in some respects, completely different to me. I can certainly understand why people may congregate when immigrating to a new country as it provides them with people to live with and relate to.  

My interactions with the French themselves, was, in some respects different, at least in the initial stages of my stay. Anxious is a word that I would definitely use to describe my initial feelings towards speaking with them. I had a shared kitchen in my halls of residence and the initial move to speak with them was daunting. Trying to communicate with people when you are not confident in their language is a big challenge. However, fortunately for me, these people were very open to discussion, and as a result, my confidence grew and my language improved greatly.

I think, generally, I was very lucky with my experiences. It could be attributed to the notion that I am a white male who was visiting predominantly white societies. There is an example of ‘otherness’ (as discussed by Robins) that I was subjected to when in Paris, however. I walked past a Frenchman (with an Australian friend of mine) who was offering to do our caricatures; we were not interested and politely declined, in French. However, this man decided that it would be a good idea to start abusing us, referring to how he was sick of American tourists – in somewhat broken English. At the time I wanted to do nothing more than to insult him back in French. My intended response (of which I did not actually say out loud) stemmed from two things. The first being that I did not like being incorrectly labelled as American - I was perhaps labelled as such due to the large amounts of American tourists, but also because of our use of English, and of our skin colour. It was a generalisation that, once again, allowed me to empathise with people who are more greatly affected by generalisations in their daily lives. The second, however, was that I wanted to reply in French. I wanted this man to understand that I was not so different to him, that I spoke his language and that his perceptions of me were unfounded, untruthful and unwarranted. I felt like I belonged in French society, that my small town where I had been living felt like home and suddenly my thoughts and feelings were being attacked. I can only imagine what this is like for people who need to put up with this every day. It created a sense of distance between my newfound “home” and myself, that I had been yet to experience.

This idea of an in-group was, despite all of my previous experiences, at its strongest when coming across other Australians. There was a sense of home, or of comfort in hearing an Australian accent. The connection was almost instantly there; it was existent on the preconceived notion that we were the same based on our patriotism. No matter the background of this person, socially, economically, or otherwise, we fit. These people may not necessarily be people that I would spend time with in Australia, as our interests and Australian cultural backgrounds were diverse. It was these contexts and conditions that allow for a transcendence of these differences - as there is an unspoken understanding that we are a long way from home. This further cements my thoughts and empathy towards those who create communities as migrants within Australia.

I think that, above all our differences, whether it be with my relationship to other Australians, foreign students, or French people, there is a transcendence above these things that takes place when the context allows for it. Sameness and difference is all relative to the context.