This is a ‘metaphor’ borrowed by one of Pittu Laungani’s articles that I have been contemplating on recently. I have often used this metaphor to describe processes around the sense of  ‘at home-ness’ and I remember thinking about it that way especially when I was counselling refugees and asylum seekers…it was realy like carrying their home on their back. However, when talking with a colleague yesterday and mentioning it to him, he told me that the tortoise carries the shell on its back, which makes it quite slow and difficult to move…and mentioned the idea around finding ‘home’ inside and be able to ‘outgrow’ one’s boundaries or sense of secure space in that way. This made me think of the mataphor in a different way.I am thinking around this sense of ‘at home-ness’ (or lack of it) in cross-cultural counselling and within myself as a ‘bi-cultural’ person. Where is ‘home’ after all?

I have been feeling a bit ‘lost’ in my process lately, as the research process is triggering many of my own wounds, sth that makes my vision blur due to the pain that overtakes my territory…I know that this is common in heuristic, qualitative studies. My dear friend Lola (a slovac artist) send me a quote that cherishes the importance of the ‘gap’, the nothing between things: … Read more »

….after a couple of days of feeling ‘numb’ around my process, i had an urge today to start writing and made a start with writing my bit of my ’story’ that is rleated to the topic of “managing transitions and integartion of original and host culture”…for the book chapter am writing with C.L. I haven’t come too far with it, as it requires me finding ways to express processes that touch me deeply but am glad that I seem to be finding a voice for this kind of experience and even finding relavant literature for it. It feels painful to be writing about a personal experience that hasn’t settled well inside but there is a positive side in me that says that something good and helpful will come out of this…i just need to be courageous. I am chosing not to put my writing here in public yet as it is a document that will be submitted for publication to ‘Sage’ later in the year…but this is a kind of ‘narrative inquiry’ i just started doing, a way of writing which incorporates my own ’story’ and the debates around the topic…let’s see what comes out of it

Today I have been having many ’stories’ in my head around how many of my autobiographical STORIES may be affecting the research process. This is something I have discussed with WW during a supervision session in the past and it also came up as a theme on a number of occassions recently, one when attending Kim Etherigton’s workshop in November and another when talking with Sophia B. in Crete about her own PhD. I think it would be helpful if I did some reading on this topic. A good start would be the following books: … Read more »

I have arranged to meet with Clare tomorrow. Here are the points I would like to look at with her: … Read more »