ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we are fundamentally concerned with the mediation of personal learning experiences by transnational migration, one of the phenomena that comes with and constitutes the globalization of cultures. From rationalist perspectives, moving from one culture to another is not a problem for knowing and Self because it simply involves changing from one system of linguistic and cultural codes into another. All one has to learn is how to translate between the two respective forms of code. Within rationalist perspectives, such translation is taken to be unproblematic, as the proliferation and use of mechanical translators on the Internet shows. However, as we exemplify through our own experiences in this chapter, transnational migrations both within Western culture and from Eastern to Western cultures are associated with a substantial change of the bearings that allow a person to mark and remark sense; and it challenges the culturally specific forms of identity that we have been drawing on prior to migration (Roth & Harama, 2000). That is, transnational migration brings about a shift in everything that mediates who we are, that is, our identities. These identities constitute both a central resource in what we can and will do and the products of our actions, which come to be context-and experience-independent only through substantial work of abstraction. This also is the case for science and science learning.
