Making sense of transnational academics’ experiences: Constructive marginality in liminal spaces

Throughout this volume, our authors in Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania have consistently portrayed higher education and the academic market as increasingly global-leading universities to hire foreign faculty members with greater frequency than ever before. Once these faculty members are “imported,”they face a broad search for meaning in their new position as a transnational scholar. In Chapter 9, Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich describes her “ongoing liminal position as an academic other”in which one is constantly a learner and observer, thus conferring “advantages and analytical adventures.”This concluding chapter is an attempt to understand better such liminality: Its qualities; how transnational faculty members, their coworkers, and institutions can successfully deal with its challenges; and how an inclusive approach can enrich and benefit the work dynamics of host organizations.