Narratives of Participation, Identity,and Positionality: Two Cases of SaudiLearners of English in the United States

SHANNON GIROIRThe University of Texas at AustinAustin, Texas, United States

This article reports a study that investigated how two Saudi Arabianmen negotiated their positionality vis-�a-vis a host community in theUnited States and how they engaged in different discursive practicesin order to achieve fuller participation in the various worlds thatbecame important to them. The study takes data from a largerresearch project that looked at the narrated experiences of nineadult learners enrolled in an intensive English program in theUnited States. Data were collected over a 6-month period usingethnographic data collection tools such as classroom observations,individual interviews, and student-designed second language (L2)photo narratives. The article focuses on the processes by which twolanguage learners of a particularly politicized and racialized culturalgroup (Muslims of Arab descent) were able to renegotiate theirperipherality through their ongoing interactions as “novices” innew L2 “expert” communities (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Although thetwo cases diverge in critical ways, the findings show not only howpost-9/11 discourses served as powerfully marginalizing structures,but also how the learners actively managed those structures in theirbids for fuller participation in L2 communities.

doi: 10.1002/tesq.95

The relationship between the language learner and the target lan-guage context is one that has been given increased attention in

teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), particularlyin light of the ever-growing interest in second language (L2) identityresearch (Block, 2007; Norton & Toohey, 2011). This body of workhas offered new perspectives on language learning, illustrating howlearners’ multiple identifications (based on categories of gender, race,and sexual orientation, among others) can impact their L2 learningprocesses as well as their access to L2 community resources. Despitemore focused attention to these relationships in L2 learning, however,one issue that has been underresearched in the field is that of identity,race, and TESOL in post-9/11 contexts, because little work has honed

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in on the experiences of learners who identify as Muslim or on howcurrent exclusionary social and political discourses can create complexconditions for learning and participation. Addressing this gap inresearch becomes more pressing when one considers the significantincrease in Saudi Arabians living and studying abroad since the 2005initiation of the Saudi Scholarship Program (from approximately2,500 in 2005 to 50,000 in 2011 in the United States alone). Further-more, because structures of differentiation and exclusion around Islamcan be located across TESOL communities (Dunn, Klocker, & Salabay,2007; Rich & Troudi, 2006), well beyond the U.S. context, this remainsan area of needed research with global relevance.

This article reports on a study that investigated how two SaudiArabian men negotiated their positionality vis-�a-vis the L2 community inwhich they lived and studied English as a second language (ESL), andhow they each engaged in different discursive practices (Davies & Harr�e,1999) in order to achieve fuller participation in the various L2 worldsthat became important to them. The study takes data from a largerresearch project that looked at nine adult learners enrolled in an inten-sive English program (IEP) in the United States, the focus here beingon the processes by which learners of a particularly politicized and racial-ized cultural group (Muslims of Arab descent) were able to renegotiatetheir peripherality through their ongoing, and often incongruent, inter-actions in the larger L2 community. I begin by discussing the conceptualorientations and literature that shaped this investigation, including a dis-cussion that situates the research problem within broader discussions ofrace, Islam, and TESOL in post-9/11 contexts.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATUREREVIEW

Aimed at exploring the complex, and often contentious, relationshipbetween L2 learners and the social worlds in which they participate, thisstudy drew on theoretical orientations that view language learning as par-ticipation in a linguistic community and that regard language learningitself as a situated social practice. The communities of practice framework(CoP; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) is often cited by those whoare interested in how L2 learners form identities as they move fromperipheral to full participation in social worlds, and how that participa-tion is or is not sanctioned by those in power within those worlds. Intheir original framework, Lave and Wenger (1991) conceptualizedperipherality based on their theoretical concept of legitimate peripheralparticipation (LPP). LPP was seen as a positive and necessary point, aposition of possibility, in which newcomers are situated within a commu-

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nity of practice. The concept suggested “an opening, a way of gainingaccess to sources for understanding through growing involvement”(Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 37), with the learner’s “novice” status seen pos-itively by the expert community (rather than as a reason for exclusion)in order for the learner to engage on a path toward full participation.

Interestingly, as the CoP framework has been applied to L2 contexts(Leki, 2001; Morita, 2004; Norton, 2000, 2001; Toohey, 2000), it hasbeen found that LPP, as Kanno (1998) argued, “is not how it is” (p. 128)and that learners “are often blocked from the very resource that is vital totheir acquisition of the L2: opportunities to interact with native speakers”(p. 129). In other words, L2 learners are not always offered LPP, theirpaths toward full participation are not always sanctioned, and L2 learnerscan be denied access to community resources as a result of local biasesaround categories of gender, race, and linguistic ability. How learnersnegotiate those structures of marginalization and bid for more powerfulstances remains an important topic of investigation (Lantolf & Pavlenko,2001; Norton & Toohey, 2011). This study aimed at addressing this issueby looking more closely at the activities and interactions that take placeat the periphery of communities of practice, conceptualizing that spaceas a dynamic site of struggle in which learners construct their identitiesthrough their ongoing discursive practices within those communities.

IDENTITY AND AGENCY AS DISCURSIVE PRACTICE

Poststructuralist approaches to second language acquisition recog-nize that L2 learners are engaged in a dialogic relationship with soci-ety, one in which context is negotiated rather than presupposed, andin which speakers must continuously negotiate their identity positionsrelative to other speakers (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001; Norton &Toohey, 2011). From these perspectives, learners’ identities, both inhow they are socially imposed and how they are self-articulated, can beregarded as discursive practices, that is, social enterprises that involvelearners continuously engaging with a variety of discourses constructedaround their multiple identity positions, including, among manyothers, their racial and cultural identities. Weedon (1997) emphasizesthe constitutive role of discourse, discursive referring to “ways of consti-tuting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectiv-ity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and therelations between them” (p. 108). Complementary to that view, Daviesand Harr�e (1999) put forth the idea that “to know anything is to knowin terms of one or more discourses” (pp. 34–35), with discourse under-stood not as a property of an individual, but as a “multi-faceted publicprocess through which meanings are progressively and dynamically

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achieved” (p. 35). In the same theoretical vein, a learner’s agency isunderstood as a socially situated, culturally bound process. As Butler(2004) characterizes it, agency is action that is, somewhat paradoxi-cally, made available by the discursive parameters within which we allexist; she wrote, “If I have any agency, it is opened up by the fact thatI am constituted by a social world I never chose” (p. 3).

A view of identity and agency as situated enterprises gives particularmeaning to the processes by which L2 learners negotiate participationin L2 communities. In many ways, achieving fuller participation is a pro-cess of recognition and belonging, embedded in the dynamic discursiveframeworks of the social worlds in which they desire participation. Withrecognition as the goal, learners engage with multiple discourses toachieve what constitutes a “coherent” subject position (Davies & Harr�e,1999). As Block (2007) puts it, “all actors will position themselves andothers according to their sense of what constitutes a coherent narrativefor the particular activity, time, and place” (p. 19). Related to this per-spective are what Butler (2004) characterizes as norms of recognition, orways of being and doing that make individuals intelligible to others,compelling them to engage in self-regulation and take up readable identi-ties as a way of establishing recognition and carving out coherent modesof belonging. For example, Ellwood’s (2009) research illustrates how L2learners (and experts) are pressured to “operate within known dis-courses” (p. 113); otherwise they risk “uninhabitable identifications” inthe community. The findings of Ellwood’s study show that although Jap-anese ESL learners resisted racialized discourses in order to overcomeobstacles to participation, they also recognized themselves within thosediscourses and took up positions that were aligned with negative stereo-types of Japanese students “in the name of intelligibility” (p. 113).Respectively, one might expect that certain identity options are madesalient at the periphery of L2 communities in light of post-9/11 Islamo-phobic discourses that offer undesirable, yet widely recognizable, posi-tions to learners who identify as Arab and Muslim. Furthermore,because inequality and discrimination on the basis of religious and cul-tural identification are being seen as increasingly racialized, the topic ofracial identity and TESOL takes on new dimensions.

PERIPHERALITY AND RACE IN POST-9/11 CONTEXTS

To diverge from simplistic notions of race as a decontextualized,objective condition, the concept of racialization has been used in theliterature to explain race as a “socially constructed response to socio-cultural, political, and historical conditions at a given point in time”(Rich & Troudi, 2006, p. 617). As such, the growing anti-Islamicism of

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recent decades is indicative of what some scholars have referred to asthe “new racism” (Cole, 1997), illustrative of how discourses of other-ness and inferiority can be applied to ethnic groups on the grounds ofcultural markers such as shared religion, language, and beliefs. In fact,new racism frameworks illuminate the increasingly contested terrain ofdistinctions between categories of race and ethnicity, the particular phe-nomenon of Islamophobia showing how those two constructs canbecome collapsed in real-world contexts. Dunn et al. (2007) have con-tended that Islamophobia is informed by both “old” and “new” logics,being based not “on some supposed biological grounds, but on reli-gion and culture (including appearance) more generally” (p. 567).According to these authors, new racisms still draw heavily from dis-courses of otherness, yet “fundamentally assist with structures of inferi-ority (hierarchies) and differentiation (exclusion)” (p. 567).

Rich and Troudi’s (2006) report on Saudi MA TESOL students inthe United Kingdom examines some of the ways in which new racismsoperate in L2 learning communities where Islamophobic discoursesare becoming increasingly evident. In their report, the Saudi partici-pants’ accounts of othering did not always reference race directly; how-ever, they foregrounded religion, culture, and ethnicity in ways thatwere understood as “evidence of racialized Othering taking place”(p. 623). Further, post-9/11 discourses shaped how these learners sawthemselves in relation to the larger L2 community. They had expecta-tions of being treated unequally on the basis of their religious andethnic identity, and as one Saudi learner put it: “What is going onaround the world politically and what is going on in the Middle East isalways looming in the back of my mind” (p. 623).

With regard to the social context of this particular study (the Uni-ted States), I use the term post-9/11 narrative to represent dominantstorylines that have developed in the media and public discourses onthe topics of Islam, “alien” immigration to the United States, U.S. citi-zenship, and terrorism since the violent events of September 11, 2001.Since 9/11, not only have there been remarkable changes in U.S. leg-islation and immigration policy that have resulted in exclusionary prac-tices toward immigrants from the Middle East (Sekhon, 2003; Shaw,2009), but reports of discrimination against Arab Americans (Kulwicki,Khalifa, & Moore, 2008) as well as Middle Eastern university studentshave increased (Norris, 2011). Although there has been a considerable(and many say equal) outpouring of support for Arab and Muslimcommunities in the United States, as well as public condemnation ofhate crimes and discrimination, the increased attention placed onMuslims has resulted nonetheless in their transformation from“invisible” to “glaringly conspicuous” (Salaita, 2005, p. 149). Howelland Shyrock (2003) describe the repercussions of such visibility:

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In the aftermath of 9/11, Arab and Muslim Americans have been com-pelled, time and again, to apologize for acts they did not commit, tocondemn acts they never condoned, and to openly profess loyaltiesthat, for most U.S. citizens, are merely assumed. (p. 444)

In some ways, the inauguration of the Saudi Scholarship Programcould be viewed as a powerful public counterstatement to pervasivelynegative post-9/11 sentiments, given that one mission of the program,as articulated by a joint statement from former President George W.Bush and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdullaziz Al Saud following theirwell-known 2005 meeting in Crawford, Texas, is to “expand dialogue,understanding, and interactions between our [American and Saudi]citizens” so as to “overcome obstacles facing Saudi businessmen andstudents who wish to enter the United States” (quoted in Shaw, 2009,p. 60). As a result of such initiatives, the Saudi student population hasrisen significantly not only in the United States, but also worldwide.Thus, it is quite surprising that only a few published studies (e.g., Rich& Troudi, 2006) have examined outcomes of this increased presence inTESOL communities—for both students and TESOL professionals—against the backdrop of an increasingly Islamophobic climate.

The choice to theorize at the intersection of peripherality, Islam,and ESL learning was an attempt to address this gap in L2 researchon this particular group of learners by examining (1) how structuresof marginalization shape Saudi learners’ L2 experiences and (2) howlearners manage these structures through their ongoing interactionsin the L2 community. Because the second goal involved examininghow learners construct agentive stances in the face of marginalizingcircumstances, the theoretical orientations toward agency discussed,along with Lave and Wenger’s (1999) description of LPP, helped toforeground an understanding of peripherality that was meant to leave“conceptual room for the actions and investments of human agents”(Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 427). Therefore, peripherality is regardedhere as a space of possibility—rather than entirely a space of exclusion—one in which multiple and divergent discursive options are availableby means of both structures of cultural reproduction as well as by theinterpretive processes of the subjects who engage with them.

METHOD

Participants and Setting

This study takes data from a larger study that looked at a group ofnine adult ESL learners studying in an IEP who were diverse incultural and linguistic background, age, and academic and profes-

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sional trajectories. The larger study was not specifically guided byresearch questions focused on race in L2 learning, but instead by abroader research question: How do L2 learners negotiate the periph-ery in order to achieve fuller participation in L2 communities? Fromthis study, I elaborate here on two of the nine participants’ experi-ences, the two Saudi men of the participant group, Musa and Alim.The salient themes that emerged across these cases provided a strongrationale to further examine how structures of racialization influencedtheir experiences as L2 learners, and are thus analyzed here from thatframework.

Musa. Musa (age 18) began learning English as a foreign language(EFL) at a young age in Saudi Arabia, as part of the general schoolcurriculum, and he reported to have had much exposure to Englishthrough American movies, the Internet, and video games available tohim in his home country. After completing high school in SaudiArabia, Musa began his study in the United States as part of a SaudiScholarship Program affiliated with a Saudi corporate manufacturerwith U.S. subsidiaries. The recipients of this scholarship were fundedfor 1 year of study in ESL and prerequisite courses in math andscience, after which they were eligible to apply to a 4-year U.S. degreeprogram in engineering.

Alim. As a graduate student, Alim (age 26) was planning toenter an MBA program following his ESL coursework, and his ESLstudies were also funded by scholarships from the Saudi govern-ment. Like Musa, Alim began studying EFL at a young age as partof his school curriculum; however, being 8 years older than Musaand established in his professional career, Alim had spent consider-able time in other English-speaking countries before coming to theUnited States. He travelled internationally with his father as a busi-ness apprentice, his family often vacationed in England, and he hadbeen employed in New Zealand the year before choosing to studyin the United States.

Research setting. The study took place in the IEP of a large univer-sity in the southern United States in which the participants wereenrolled in ESL classes. Townesville (a pseudonym for the city inwhich the study took place) has been characterized as a haven ofcountercultural attitudes and boasted a liberal identity, in contrast tothe general political leanings of the state (conservative). The univer-sity’s large international student population, along with the region’shistorically strong Mexican American presence, contributed greatly tothe city’s racial and linguistic diversity. Yet, despite these

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characteristics, the city continued to struggle with race relations andshowed signs of geographical segregation.

Data Collection

The project’s focal goal was to contribute to research that examinesemic perspectives on second language learning, particularly by investi-gating “the conditions for learning, and the issues of access of learnersfor appropriation of practices” of the social worlds that become impor-tant to learners (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 419). In order to meetthese goals, my orientation required an interpretive epistemologicalstance as well as ethnographic methods of data collection.

I became acquainted with the study participants in 2009, when I tookon an active membership role (Adler & Adler, 1994) in an advanced-levellistening and speaking course in the IEP. As a participant-observer, I par-ticipated in many class activities, assisted the teacher at times, and inter-acted with students as part of class discussions. My participation in theclassroom community became a primary means by which to get to knowthe participants and, informed by multiple data collection tools, co-con-struct their narratives of experience. Data were collected during a semes-ter-long period, and data sources were (1) classroom observations, (2)interviews, and (3) student-designed oral photo narratives. My participa-tion and regular observation in the classroom community was an impor-tant source of data due to the course content and design, whichencouraged students to interact and draw on personal experiences thatrelated to course topics. Because I was not allowed to record classsessions (except for students’ oral presentations of their photo narra-tives), I took detailed notes during observations. In addition to the obser-vations, I conducted between 1 and 2 hours of formal interviews with theparticipants, which were digitally recorded and transcribed. Finally, par-ticipants completed a photo narrative assignment in which they wereinstructed to use photography to document their experiences. This pro-ject culminated in a formal class presentation in which they visuallyarranged and discussed photographs that represented their goals, innerthoughts, and views of themselves over time. Students’ presentations oftheir photo narratives were digitally recorded and transcribed, as werepostpresentation interviews I conducted with participants.

Approach to Analysis

The data were primarily narrative, and I applied a framework foranalysis informed by narrative inquiry (Barkhuizen, 2011; Ochs &

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Capps, 1996). Drawing from these perspectives, I viewed the researchactivities as performative, sense-making practices through which theparticipants’ identities were continuously iterated and transformedthrough their telling and retelling of experience; all the while theparticipants were building “novel understandings of themselves-in-the-world” (Ochs & Capps, 1996, p. 23).

As a co-constructor with the participants of their stories, myapproach to analysis necessarily involved “narrative knowledging”(Barkhuizen, 2011), because both the participants and I were mutuallyinvolved in “meaning making, learning, and knowledge construction”(Barkhuizen, p. 395) at different stages of the research process. Onthe participants’ side, this meant that they used a variety of narrativeforms (e.g., creating a photo story), some more interactive than others(e.g., responses to guided interview questions), in order to engage in asense-making activity of their experiences as L2 learners abroad. I, asthe researcher, recognizing the interactional nature of their stories aswell as the context in which these were told, approached the data asdiscursive artifacts by which to do continuous comparison of multipledata sources both within and across individual cases. Data analysisinvolved initially identifying broad categories of experience across datasources and coding for themes. As initial conclusions were drawn, Ithen triangulated across data sources (e.g., photo narrative, interviews)to clarify and corroborate findings. Writing the findings representedanother layer of analysis; the two cohesive stories presented are theproduct of connecting and emplotting salient themes. Member checks(in which participants read and commented on the written findings)were conducted with selected available participants, and Musa was oneof those participants.

RESEARCHER POSITIONALITY AND STUDYLIMITATIONS

Given the foci of this article, it is important to acknowledge that, asresearcher, I occupied several meaning-laden social identities as afemale native speaker of English and member of the mainstream tar-get language community. Although I am of Lebanese descent andshare physical features of that ethnic group, my positionality as anAmerican, a woman, and an “outsider” to the classroom communityundoubtedly shaped my interactions with the learners and my inter-pretation of their experiences. There were perhaps multiple advanta-ges and disadvantages to this positionality, but I hoped that adherenceto specific research strategies (e.g., data triangulation, prolonged field

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engagement, member checks, peer debriefing) would enhance thecredibility and trustworthiness of the data presented.

Other limitations were present and should be noted. First, all of theresearch activities were conducted in the participants’ L2 of English.Working with advanced speakers and incorporating nonlinguistic datasources (i.e., the photo narrative project) were means to reduce thatlimitation. Second, Alim was one of the few participants who was notable to participate in the postpresentation interview, and although par-ticipation in this activity would have enhanced the data, I was able toconfirm what I conjectured in my analysis through triangulation of theremaining data sources.

FINDINGS

In the following sections, I present the stories of Musa and Alim,with the goal of illustrating the ways in which these two learners nego-tiated participation outside of the ESL classroom. As will becomeapparent, these stories diverge in critical ways, and I aim to highlighthow their different discursive practices were contingent on the multi-ple identity positions that were prioritized in the participants’ ongoing,situated negotiations for participation. Musa, at age 18, was embarkingon his first experience outside of his home country, and his narrativeof participation centered on his “opening” to social worlds outside ofhis familiar first language (L1) parameters. At age 26, Alim brought atransnational expertise with him, having previously lived and workedabroad, and his narrative of participation centered on how his ethnicand religious identities were contested in the wake of 9/11. In bothcases, the learners constructed a sense of autonomy in managing thedisruptions they encountered, achieving identity positions that wereboth iterative and transformative of their previous positions.

Musa

Musa was the youngest member of the ESL class in which I becamea participant observer, but he was one of the most confident in him-self and his linguistic abilities. Before arriving in Townesville the fallsemester prior to my data collection, he had just completed highschool in his hometown, and he had plans to study engineering in theUnited States for 5 years as part of the Saudi scholarship program.One major aspect to participating in the program was that Musa felt astrong attachment to a peer group of fellow Saudi scholarship recipi-ents, because he had become acquainted with them in pre-travel and

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arrival orientations, shared the same course schedule with them, andlived with them in the same residence.

Upon his arrival in the United States, Musa reported to be enthu-siastic and optimistic, familiar with the common myths of “America”as representing opportunity and promise. “I mean, come on,” he toldme, “it’s the land of opportunity. . . . Like, everyone around theworld, believe me, wants to come to America.” He recognized thesymbolic value of participating in the U.S. higher education system,and although he had plans to return to Saudi Arabia after 5 years,he expressed an openness to assimilating to some degree. He arrivedin Townesville with short hair, a mustache, and a beard, all of whichwere specific markers of his cultural and ethnic background. Afterhe arrived, he had shaved his facial hair and let the hair on his headgrow long, citing, “I am not in my country. I can do whatever Iwant.” Musa was interested in participating in the social world of col-lege undergraduates, he was enthusiastic and talkative in the ESLclass, and his story of his first year abroad centered on his emergingindependence and openness to new social and cultural groups.

By the time Musa began his second semester in the ESL program,he had made several international student friends, yet he consideredthe process of making American friends very different:

The international students are more open, well, not more open, butmore willing to meet. But the American, like, you are coming to them,they have their own lives, own friends, own system, and you just bustin, and, you know, some of them doesn’t like it.

Here, Musa recognized himself as an outsider to “expert” commu-nity practices, aligning himself within the imagined community ofinternational students, which, although hardly homogenous in regardto its members’ national identities, languages, and positionality vis-�a-visthe host community, he understood as bounded by a common new-comer status. As we will see, Musa took up this position as a newcomerand outsider to the larger host community, and these identitiesinformed his trajectory of participation.

Musa had a strong attachment to the places he considered homein Townesville, and they represented important sites of belonging forhim that offered different opportunities for participation outside ofhis Saudi group. As the study began, Musa was in his second semes-ter in Townesville and had just moved out of the dormitory into aprivate apartment. He had much regret over this decision:

In [the apartment], nobody cares about you. You just pay and that’s it.So you don’t have some connection to the community. I don’t knowmy front door neighbors; I never see them.

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Reflecting on this move, Musa regretted not taking more advantage ofhis time in the dormitory, having “a lot of chances” to meet new people.

Musa’s photo narrative included several images of the differentspaces of the dormitory. When I asked him if he associated any ofthese images with a particular language (English or Arabic), he associ-ated pictures of the dormitory building and his room with Arabicbecause he had not yet met anyone outside of his Saudi group. How-ever, when we came to the photograph of the dorm volleyball courts,he reported to associate it with English, saying that it represented thetime when he “started opening up to people.” He started to playvolleyball, adding some Americans as friends.

There was another critical site of participation that Musa fre-quented, and that was the lobby of his dormitory. He explained itsimportance:

And I started to go to the lobby. I didn’t take a picture of the lobby,[but] I like to spend more than 2 or 3 hours in the lobby with my lap-top and stuff, so anyone who sits next to me, we talk . . . I had a lot ofquestions so that keeps the conversation going.

For Musa, frequenting the lobby represented an intelligible (Butler,2004) move toward the center of new social communities; he engagedwithin recognizable storylines by interacting in public spaces thatoffered opportunities for newcomers to participate. This is not to saythat the newcomer identity was entirely sanctioned by Musa. It waslargely imposed on him through community ideologies that placed theonus on L2 learners (and newcomers) to initiate relationships withexperts. Yet, by recognizing his position within these discourses, hetook up a readable framework by which to negotiate a new and moredesirable positionality.

Musa’s reflections on his experiences suggest that his opening as aperson coincided with his opening to the multiple communitiesaround him. Musa described ways in which his time in Townesvillehad been transformative. He had become “more sociable” andexplained: “No matter where you put me right now, I know I canmake a lot of friends. Even starting from zero.” For him, this was anew way of being, as he considered social relationships, especiallybetween men, in his home country as very closed:

You cannot meet someone in a coffee shop [in Saudi Arabia]. You say“Hi” and he says, “What do you want?” They always respond in a nega-tive way. But now, here, I am really opening up to people.

Ultimately, this was a positive stance to achieve for Musa, it was bothiterative and transformative of his previous subject positions, and itwas realized through his situated navigation of multiple social worlds.

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As will become clear when I discuss Alim, Musa did not engage withpost-9/11 discourses in the same way as Alim did, and his novice iden-tity was mostly associated with two factors: his age and his inexperiencewith others outside of the Saudi Arabian culture. Musa, being 8 yearsyounger than Alim, was embarking on his first meaningful experienceoutside of Saudi Arabia, and his trajectory of belonging reflected hisbudding independence from the religious, familial, and culturalparameters of his L1 world. Part of that trajectory involved a resistanceto Islamophobic discourses, taking up the position that racism wasonly a problem “if one was looking for it.” He did report being initiallyafraid of how he would be treated in the United States as a Saudi stu-dent, but in a joking manner. “I thought they would put me in a cageand walk me around the city,” he kidded. He even reported being sub-ject to racial profiling in the customs line upon entering the country,getting “picked out” of the line for a special search. Yet, aside fromthese initial experiences, he did not consider himself to be subject toracism in his everyday life, finding most people in Townesville to beopen-minded and interested in his country. This is not to say thatMusa was excluded from racial discourses, but his uncritical accep-tance of his outsider status points to the persuasive power of discoursearound citizenship, belonging, and national identity. As a factor thatdistinguished his story from Alim’s, I will revisit Musa’s discursivestance toward discriminating social forces later on.

Alim

Alim (age 26) was from a metropolitan city in western Saudi Arabia,and he had been in Townesville for 18 months when I met him. Hisprior year working in New Zealand was a significant L2 learning expe-rience for him, which he described as the first time he had to use Eng-lish for real communication both at work and in his social life. Inaddition to his English-speaking colleagues, he had a native-English-speaking girlfriend from New Zealand who became an important“teacher” to him. During the time I interacted with Alim, I observedhim to be confident in his oral language abilities, and he was highlyparticipatory in class; however, I observed him to have some difficultywith literacy skills, and he was focused on improving his reading andwriting abilities in preparation for standardized graduate schoolentrance exams.

Alim’s age, background, and experience afforded him a kind oftransnational expertise, one that was suggestive of cosmopolitanismand that heavily factored into his openness toward social participationas well as his success in achieving it. Here, I use the term cosmopolitan

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as it has been applied to personal identity models (Gunesch, 2004),broadly, as someone who feels “at home in the world” (p. 256) andwho occupies a “certain multicultural position . . . a willingness toengage with the Other” (Hannerz, 1992, p. 252). Although this frame-work for cosmopolitanism is arguably biased toward privileged, Wes-tern metropolitan conventions and does not fully capture Muslimcosmopolitanism (Leichtman & Schulz, 2012), I drew from these con-cepts to understand Alim’s comfort level with integrating himself inlocal social worlds while remaining invested in global trajectories, astance that is not necessarily common among all adult ESL learners.

Desiring to pursue a transmigrant lifestyle, Alim expressed ambiva-lence over returning to Saudi Arabia despite being a recipient of “theKing’s scholarship,” and he sought out new and meaningful experi-ences outside of his home country. “I believe that the best thing is justto have many experiences,” he explained, “to go around, travelaround, know more people. The life is fun.” I believed Alim’s priorinteractions and current investments in both local and global spacesfactored into his openness and desire to access and participate insocial communities in Townesville. Over the three semesters that hehad already been in the IEP, Alim had lived in multiple campus apart-ments with multiple roommates (both international and American).He took advantage of social spaces that allowed him to interact withnew people (e.g., apartment pool and recreation areas), and hereported to be confident in meeting others. Unlike some of the otherparticipants in the study, he did not feel it was necessary to have anAmerican roommate in order to gain entrance into L2 communities.By the time I had become acquainted with him, he had considerablesocial connections and attended regular social gatherings with bothinternational and American students.

Still, Alim’s participation in his social worlds did not come withoutconflict. Unlike Musa, Alim reported to have had experiences withracism in the United States and was called to answer directly to post-9/11 discourses that positioned him negatively. An initial exampleoccurred during our first talk when I asked Alim to describe his home-town. He began by describing his home city as more open, culturallyand religiously, than other regions in Saudi Arabia. Following thatinitial description, I asked him how he felt about his home country:

SG: Do you like where you are from?

Alim: Yes. I mean before . . .we were like separate from the world. . . .Now, it’s become more closer. People start to know about my countryand about our culture . . . it’s kind of fair now. Before that, most peopleknow what happened on September 11 and they thought we were bad

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people, but when they start to read about us, they know we can neverdo these bad things to people . . . we do care about the other countries,other cultures, religions. Because most people think that Muslims don’tcare about other religions.

In this interaction, Alim recognized himself in post-9/11 discourseand negotiated a stance within it. Although the topic of his religionhad not come up (it was the beginning of the interview), he chose totake up a particular discursive position, as someone speaking to amember of the community that has authored the marginalizing dis-courses he desired to resist. For Alim, the 9/11 narrative, although itperpetuated inaccurate stereotypes of his religious identity, became acultural resource that he chose to draw on in constructing his stancetoward the larger L2 community (Davies & Harr�e, 1999). As willbecome clear, he continuously drew on this discursive resource as hemade sense of his ongoing experiences as a Saudi student abroad.

Before arriving in the United States, Alim reported criticism amongsome family members and friends over his decision. He explained, “Somost people are like, ‘If they [Americans] don’t like us, why would wego there?’” His father shared this position, to which Alim replied,“Why? If I follow the rules, follow the law of the country, so what’swrong?” He refused to align with either anti-American or anti-Islamicdiscourses, explaining that the media “can write whatever they want,but there are some people behind that, [and] they want to makesomething between us.” His agency was voiced in his belief in his“true” identity as a good person: “I believe that I am doing good, soevery American can appreciate that because I am not doing somethingbad. I just come to study. . . . I am coming to study in their college.”

Despite Alim’s strong self-confidence in the face of these narrativeasymmetries (Ochs & Capps, 1996), that is, the discrepancy betweensociety’s narrative of him and the one he chose to construct of him-self, he was not excused from discriminatory storylines, and it is withinthat framework that he had to negotiate his agency. I will nextdescribe two instances that illustrated the discursive parameters withinwhich he was working.

One example was observed during a relatively brief moment in theclassroom, before class began, as students were arriving and gettingsettled. In these few minutes, the teacher was walking around collect-ing some completed activities, during which an informal class discus-sion was initiated on the topic of students’ weekend activities. Alimmentioned that a Saudi friend of his was arrested after being pulledover for speeding, and Alim spent the weekend trying to help hisfriend navigate the legal system and assist in the bail process. Somestudents were listening, others just arriving to class and getting settled.

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After Alim spoke for a bit, the teacher commented, “Well, you don’tspeed, especially if you’re a guy, especially if you’re from somewherein the Middle East.” Alim did not appear to react to the comment.Shortly after, the informal talk concluded and formal instructionbegan.

I believe this interaction illustrated several of the discursive param-eters within which not only Alim, but community experts such as histeacher, were continuously working. As a longtime teacher who, onseveral occasions, seemed clearly to value students’ diverse back-grounds and expertise, as well as the critique of mainstream valuesthat they often brought to classroom discussions, her comments can-not be easily or straightforwardly analyzed. Recognizing that the prac-tice of teaching is complex work with multifaceted goals, Iinterpreted her brevity as motivated by a need to transition to formalclass time. Further, based on my previous observations, I took hercomments to be a critique of the repercussions of 9/11, as a well-intentioned piece of advice for her students who, albeit unfairly, hadto deal with the realities of racial profiling in the aftermath of thosegrave events. The interaction illustrated how differently positionedactors engage differently with powerful structures of discourse.Although neither speaker overtly imposed nor resisted these struc-tures, they were nevertheless acknowledged through this interactionand thus seemed to be reified.

A second example of how Alim’s experiences were continuouslyshaped by racializing discourses was described to me by Alim, as heopened up about some of the discrimination he encountered in hisefforts to become friends with Americans. “We [Saudi Arabians]really like American people,” Alim told me, “but all my friends,before they meet me, they told me, ‘We were afraid about you. Wedon’t want to be close to you.’” One critical incident he describedinvolved a new friend, Stanley, a 23-year-old undergraduate studentfrom the Midwest who became a connection for Alim to participatein many social events with Americans. Shortly after the two hadbecome acquainted, Alim was paid a surprise visit by Stanley’s fatherwho, upon hearing that his son had become friendly with an interna-tional student from Saudi Arabia, became concerned enough to drivea considerable distance from Stanley’s home state in order to con-front Alim, without warning. Alim described the interaction with theman that followed:

I said, “I have no idea . . . what Osama or other person say. But I haveideas. I mean, Islamic religion is a really good religion. It doesn’t tellus to hurt people. They told us if you kill someone without any right itis equal to you kill[ing] everybody in this life. That is a really big sin if

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you did. So if Osama Bin Laden, or other [person], kill someonebecause of Islam, I don’t care about what he says. I care about the realthings.” And [Stanley’s father] is kind of like, “OK,” I mean, he toldme, “It was nice to meet you.” And after . . . Stanley said, “[My father]wants me to be with you. He wants me to be with you. He told me, ‘Iwant you to be with this guy.’”

Alim made sense of this critical event by interpreting it as one ofthe interactional feats he had to accomplish as part of his bids for ful-ler participation. Like many Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11, he wascompelled to answer for actions for which he was not responsible(Howell & Shyrock, 2003), having to discursively refigure himselfwithin post-9/11 narratives.

The result of this interaction was a new and transformative identityposition for Alim, one in which his legitimacy was recognized; as Alimput it, the man now “wanted” him as a rightful participant in his son’ssocial worlds. However, in reading this interaction beyond its facevalue, it becomes quite apparent that a number of discursive maneu-vers were possibly achieved in this exchange.

In reflecting on this event, Alim narrativized his agency in hisrefusal to align with such discourses. He said, “I saw them [otherAmericans] changing, but I didn’t think I did much to changethem. . . . I’m just normal. I am just as I am here like I am at homeor in any country.” In one way, Alim’s reading is a valid reading,and it is, in fact, how he saw himself as an agent: Attaching himselfstrongly and proudly to his religious identity was the action bywhich he was able to influence his present circumstances. However,a more critical reading of this interaction reveals unequal powerstructures at play, and the extent to which those power structuresshifted through this interaction is questionable. As characteristic ofbroader discourses that place the onus on L2 learners to negotiatefor participation rights in expert communities, Alim was able toachieve a legitimate status largely because he was granted the rightto speak by a more powerfully positioned “expert.” Thus, the cir-cumstances around this incident provided an intelligible frameworkfrom which Alim could act. Furthermore, it is quite possible thatStanley’s father was able to accept Alim without entirely changingracial frames (Bonilla-Silva, 2006), making an exception for him asan outlier to the status quo. Thus, this interaction showed not howAlim simply unmade his position (and all by which it was consti-tuted), but also how he was able to “do something with what wasdone to [him]” (Butler, 2004, p. 3); his agency was situated, andhis viability was constituted by the discursive parameters underwhich he spoke.

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DISCUSSION

This article reports on a study of two ESL learners of a particularlyracialized and politicized cultural group, and how they negotiatedtheir positionality vis-�a-vis the L2 community in which they lived andstudied. The findings show how these two learners engaged in differ-ent discursive practices (Davies & Harr�e, 1999) in order to achieve ful-ler participation in the various L2 worlds that became important tothem. The findings corroborate previous research that has docu-mented the effects of post-9/11 Islamophobic discourses on universitystudents from the Middle East (e.g., Norris, 2011), and specificallySaudi L2 learners (Rich & Troudi, 2006), presenting strong evidencethat these discourses served as powerful structures that created com-plex conditions for L2 participation. Still, these two cases diverged incritical ways, indicating that the Saudi student post-9/11 experience isfar from a universal, homogeneous experience. Overall, the particularsof these two cases point to some important implications for the studyof identity and agency in post-9/11 contexts, calling us to continue toexamine “the diverse positions from which language learners are ableto participate in social life” (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 414) and howthese multiple identity positions intersect in ways that inform theirability to change their identity options and, ultimately, move fromperipheral to fuller participation.

In their accounts of negotiating fuller participation, Musa andAlim foregrounded their identities as international student others, andthose identities positioned them in particular ways with respect tothe larger L2 community. As Norton (2000) found in her researchon immigrant L2 learners, unequal power relationships in L2 com-munities force the onus on novices to initiate relationships withexperts and to establish the right to speak, and, as I found in myanalysis, it was from that normative discursive frame that Musa andAlim recognized themselves and carved out intelligible (Butler, 2004)moves toward the center. In both cases, there was evidence to showhow learners not only resisted normative discourses, but also recog-nized themselves within them, took up positions within them, andaligned with them in their negotiations for participation (Ellwood,2009). In Musa’s case, intelligibility was most associated with his out-sider, international student identity, and his agency to change hispresent circumstances was negotiated by both resisting obstacles toparticipation (opening up and agentively seeking out new relation-ships) and aligning himself with these normative discourses (recog-nizing himself as an outsider to expert practices who had to take upreadable ways of initiating relationships).

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Like Musa, Alim was figured by the same “international student”storylines, but his experiences of othering prioritized his religious andcultural identities, calling him to answer directly (and unfairly) topost-9/11 narratives that positioned him in negative ways and createdobstacles for participation. As Rich and Troudi (2006) report, Aliminterpreted the discrimination he experienced as not explicitlygrounded in race, but as based on his religious and ethnic identities.In relation to those identities, discourses of differentiation and exclu-sion functioned both directly (as in the example with Stanley’s father)and indirectly (as in the classroom example of the teacher’s warning),and constrained his opportunities to speak. Alim recognized himselfwith these limited identity options, using post-9/11 discourses as acultural resource in constructing his stance toward the L2 community,but he also resisted those discourses, consistently presenting an alter-native reading of his identity. Although successful in gaining the rightto speak through his local interactions, it remains questionablewhether Alim established new terms for speaking in the broader L2community.

Although we should not downplay the powerful social forces thatunfairly marginalized these learners, those that were critical to theiridentity practices, the findings show evidence of learner agency. Ihoped to avoid the theoretical caveats of taking their agency at facevalue by offering critical readings of their accounts throughout thefindings; however, I argue that it is important to recognize how theselearners acted agentively and to provoke discussion on what suchagency meant for their trajectories of participation. Keeping in mindthat this investigation was aimed at emic perspectives on L2 participa-tion, there was evidence throughout their narratives that Musa andAlim, by their own interpretations, perceived themselves as able toshape their own trajectories and “appropriate more desirable identi-ties” (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 414), and that they interpreted thosechanges in positionality as representing fuller participation in the L2community. It is highly unlikely that these changes in positionalitywould have been achieved if not for their agentive choices. Neitherlearner remained ensconced in familiar L1 circles, but instead contin-ued to seek out meaningful relationships outside of their L1 worldsdespite the ongoing obstacles they faced. Even further, the means bywhich they confronted dismaying obstacles (e.g., Alim’s argument withStanley’s father) were laudable and should be understood as represent-ing critical competencies (discursive and linguistic) of L2 learning andparticipation.

This discussion would be remiss without acknowledging how addi-tional discursive frames (i.e., stories not told here) could have beenavailable to these learners to inform their agency. A discussion of their

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stance vis-�a-vis the expert community should not neglect the multipleand intersecting privileged social and gendered positions from whichMusa and Alim were able to act, and it is quite possible that secondlanguage learners of different backgrounds may not have perceivedsuch stances as feasible. As men of middle- to upper-class backgroundswho had previously occupied empowered positions in their home cul-tures, agency and a sense of self-determination were viable stances toassume, even when faced with marginalizing social forces. Even fur-ther, as visa holders with considerable cultural capital (e.g., literacy,previous schooling, transnational ties), Alim and Musa were affordedlegitimacy on other levels. As students in an IEP, their academic andprofessional paths were sanctioned and supported, as was their accrue-ment of powerful forms of symbolic capital (e.g., entrance into a uni-versity) that led to other forms of capital (e.g., degrees, employment).This framework, along with their participation in the Saudi Scholar-ship Program, offered alternative narratives that legitimized theirtrajectory, such as important political messages that validated theirexperience as necessary and valuable to both U.S. and Saudi stake-holders. These are inarguably strong institutional sources of legiti-macy, ones we know are not offered to all immigrants and L2 learnersin the United States. Acknowledgment of such forms of privilegeopens up discursive options for refusing racialized discourses, as wasquite possible in Musa’s case.

Overall, the study shows evidence to support an understanding ofthe periphery of communities as more than a space of exclusion orrestriction for L2 learners, but a space of dynamic possibility, a sitein which powerful structures of cultural reproduction interact withthe interpretive processes and discursive histories of individual learn-ers. Musa and Alim saw themselves as changing their stances andclaiming new positions by which they could act; however, the find-ings also point to how these actions were shaped, and even madepossible, by the inequitable power fields in which they played out,structures that will likely continue to inform their participation insome way.

CONCLUSION: SUGGESTIONS FOR PRACTICE

Although this study focused on L2 participation outside of theESL classroom, these findings bring up some important issues forTESOL professionals. Given the prevalence of competing sociopoliti-cal discourses evident in the wake of 9/11, along with an increasingSaudi student population, it seems legitimate to ask: Do we see our-selves as stakeholders of the positive mission of programs such as the

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Saudi Scholarship Program? And if so, how do our classroom prac-tices reflect that investment? How are the outcomes of such pro-grams understood and translated by administrators and teacherswithin institutions? Clearly, more research is needed beyond thesetwo case studies to argue strongly for changes in policy or practice,and voices of students, teachers, and administrators need to beheard.

In addition to these specific issues, I argue that the findings of thisstudy support implications for practice that have surfaced from L2identity research as a whole, specifically those focused on adoptingcritical perspectives on pedagogy (Canagarajah, 1999; Kubota & Lin,2006; Norton, 1995). Given this study’s findings, these critical perspec-tives should include ways that teachers facilitate learners in claiming“the right to speak” outside the classroom (Norton, 1995), makingspace in classroom discourses for deconstructing authentic expert–novice interactions. One way to do this is to make room for L2 narra-tive activities. As shown in the cases of Musa and Alim, L2 narrativescan mediate social practices that allow learners space to interpretconflicts and define their identities through “voicing agentive selves”(Hull & Katz, 2006, p. 71). For many learners, structures of racializa-tion can be silencing, thus presenting obstacles to fuller participationand community resources; for such students, it can be advantageous tocreate classroom space for students to narrate, discuss, and analyzeauthentic L2 experiences, with teachers facilitating critical examina-tion of the multiple competencies that learners enact as they movefrom peripheral to fuller participation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research would not have been possible without the participants who devotedtime and effort to the project. I would like to extend my gratitude to ProfessorDiane Schallert for her thoughtful feedback on previous drafts of this manuscript.I sincerely thank the TESOL Quarterly anonymous reviewers whose comments andsuggestions were invaluable in shaping the final version. I would also like toacknowledge the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk for supportingthe writing of this manuscript.

THE AUTHOR

Shannon Giroir is a postdoctoral fellow at the Meadows Center for PreventingEducational Risk at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interestsinclude sociocultural influences on second language learning, culturally respon-sive teaching, and academic literacies.

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