The Strange Body

Abstract

As the figure of a person occupying a space not of her own, the figure of the stranger appears to represent the one who does not belong (Ahmed, 2000). In this chapter, I explore on how ideas of the s trange body are produced in research studies and how these notions affect the ways we inhabit institutional spaces and times. To do this I explore on the discourses presented in research studies about international students and the ways they provide the contours by which to live and experience space and time. In this chapter, I present a discussion on the notion of the graduate international student as constructed by research studies in which the production of deficient subjects is a way to enforce the ideal notion of a person occupying a particular space and time in US educational institutions. Here, it is important to pay attention to the roles and operations of a disembodied identity that is produced in research studies. By disembodiment I mean the detachment of the body from the particularities of time and space (Bordo, 1986).¹ As bodies in motion are represented in research as lacking and culturally deficient, the image of the subject is of someone who can be read as neutral, absolute, and detached; detached from her/his “original space” and her/his tempos.