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Abstract
Rooted in the multiple theoretical, conceptual, and methodological frameworks of Thirdspace theory, everydayness, visual self-inquiry, and digital storytelling, this study explores, interprets, and analyzes the researcher's seven-year journey as a Korean woman international graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in art education in the United States. The study is based on the researcher’s on-going visual journal, "Devin's Drawing-Essay, Handspan Diary," which she began creating when she entered the University of Georgia in 2018 and that later became the focus of the dissertation as visual self-inquiry. Through playful and artistic storytelling based on everydayness, the author critically recorded and analyzed her navigation processes as an international student and bilingual foreigner who had to adapt to a new socio-cultural, educational, and academic environment. Her approach to storytelling, which was consistently uploaded to her blog and social media, not only disrupts stereotypes and submissive images of Korean women students but also creatively subverts monolithic images and perceptions of the AAPI/Asian community, which is frequently considered a homogeneous group. Using analytic processes of narrative inquiry, this study primarily addresses how visual self-inquiry functioned as a third space for the researcher but also addresses the potential for visual self-inquiry to serve as an educational space beyond the dimension of individual records. Thirdspace theory, a theoretical and conceptual framework put forward by Edward Soja, provided a critical lens for analysis and reflection by pushing the researcher to dismantle dichotomous paradigms and discourses embedded in society, as made evident in her everyday experiences. Additionally, Thirdspace theory challenged the researcher to investigate her situatedness in discourses of postcolonialism while simultaneously learning to play with ambiguity to embrace, acknowledge, and respect her contradictory perspectives and experiences. Ultimately, the researcher’s drawing-essay as visual self-inquiry demonstrated: how the researcher re-established her professional identity as a doctoral student artist-practitioner-researcher; how visual self-inquiry cultivated growth and ongoing identity formation, with potential for learners and prospective teachers in the field of art education; and how visual self-inquiry enabled collaboration with other practitioners and researchers from different fields, thereby promoting interdisciplinary relationships and prompting collective activism.