Migration and Education in a Multicultural World: Culture, Loss, and Identity

and Education in a Multicultural World: Culture, Loss, and Identity Citation: Donehower, K. (2009). Book review Migration and education in a multicultural world: Culture, loss, and Journal of Research in Rural Education, 24(13). Retrieved [date] from http://jrre.psu.edu/articles/24-13.pdf In and Education in a Multicultural World: Culture, Loss, and Identity, Ursula A. Kelly invites us to think deeply about the ways individuals renegotiate identity in an era of displacement. Kelly writes about migration and cultural loss, which, while they might occur in any context, are integral aspects of rural life-from displaced aboriginal peoples to migrant workers to declining populations from outmigration. The parallels between the 21st-century conundra of rural identity in general and those of identity in diaspora are also strong. Kelly explores how the forces of globalization and environmental degradation, and the demands of fast capitalism to bypass any extended for what has been lost, affect the migratory psyche. Scholars of the rural cannot help but read Kelly's book on two levels-to imagine how we might productively educate not only migrant communities and individuals, but also rural ones, to enable the change and renewal through mourning (p. 24) necessary to sustain cultures, communities, and individuals in a time of extreme loss. In her introduction, Kelly describes the volume as a collection of essays, and it reads as such. This style is not typical academic writing that builds arguments in a linear, thesis-driven fashion. Rather, it is essayistic in Montaigne's original sense of the word: it meanders instead of racing ahead to a foreshadowed conclusion; it explores rather than asserts. Readers must adjust their expectations for the book accordingly; you will not find recommendations for classroom practice or extended critiques of existing pedagogies here. Instead, prepare to digest the separate chapters slowly, and not necessarily in order, as you think along with Kelly about the psychological demands of cultural loss. The form and purpose of the book also mean that it is a difficult text to review in a traditional fashion. Here I attempt to give a sense of Kelly's method and the effects of her style rather than a summary and critique of the arguments that might, in a different sort of piece, arise from her analysis. In each chapter Kelly delves into one aspect of cultural loss and identity. The first and second chapters focus on the psychological processes of grief and reconciliation, while the third reflects on the possibilities and limits of literacy in negotiating identity within these contexts. The fourth, fifth, and concluding chapters turn toward education, examining, respectively, educating in contexts of environmental loss, attachments to teaching and attachments to place, and the potential for critical pedagogy to address the network of issues raised in the book. Throughout, however, Kelly remains largely focused on her analysis of culture, loss, and identity; the connections to education tend to happen briefly and at an abstract level. The book's strength lies in the multiple disciplinary perspectives that Kelly brings to bear on her subject. The first chapter, Losing Place, introduces us to some of the theoretical models that she uses throughout the text, including those from anthropology (Ruth Behar's analysis of dying cultures and the ways academics represent them), sociology (John Berger's writings on human migration), psychology (Melanie Klein's work on the processes of grief; Freud), cultural studies (Richard Johnson's explorations of collective grief and mourning), and literary theory (Judith Butler's examination of loss and its relationship to identity). In addition, she brings in works by poets and novelists, looks specifically at the history of Newfoundland and Labrador as a case example, and includes reflective passages on her own personal history of migration, loss, and teaching. …

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