Narratives of Participation, Identity,

and Positionality: Two Cases of Saudi

Learners of English in the United States
SHANNON GIROIR
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas, United States

This article reports a study that investigated how two Saudi Arabian
men negotiated their positionality vis-
a-vis a host community in the
United States and how they engaged in different discursive practices
in order to achieve fuller participation in the various worlds that
became important to them. The study takes data from a larger
research project that looked at the narrated experiences of nine
adult learners enrolled in an intensive English program in the
United States. Data were collected over a 6-month period using
ethnographic data collection tools such as classroom observations,
individual interviews, and student-designed second language (L2)
photo narratives. The article focuses on the processes by which two
language learners of a particularly politicized and racialized cultural
group (Muslims of Arab descent) were able to renegotiate their
peripherality through their ongoing interactions as novices in
new L2 expert communities (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Although the
two cases diverge in critical ways, the findings show not only how
post-9/11 discourses served as powerfully marginalizing structures,
but also how the learners actively managed those structures in their
bids for fuller participation in L2 communities.
doi: 10.1002/tesq.95

he relationship between the language learner and the target language context is one that has been given increased attention in
teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), particularly
in light of the ever-growing interest in second language (L2) identity
research (Block, 2007; Norton & Toohey, 2011). This body of work
has offered new perspectives on language learning, illustrating how
learners multiple identifications (based on categories of gender, race,
and sexual orientation, among others) can impact their L2 learning
processes as well as their access to L2 community resources. Despite
more focused attention to these relationships in L2 learning, however,
one issue that has been underresearched in the field is that of identity,
race, and TESOL in post-9/11 contexts, because little work has honed

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2013 TESOL International Association

in on the experiences of learners who identify as Muslim or on how

current exclusionary social and political discourses can create complex
conditions for learning and participation. Addressing this gap in
research becomes more pressing when one considers the significant
increase in Saudi Arabians living and studying abroad since the 2005
initiation of the Saudi Scholarship Program (from approximately
2,500 in 2005 to 50,000 in 2011 in the United States alone). Furthermore, because structures of differentiation and exclusion around Islam
can be located across TESOL communities (Dunn, Klocker, & Salabay,
2007; Rich & Troudi, 2006), well beyond the U.S. context, this remains
an area of needed research with global relevance.
This article reports on a study that investigated how two Saudi
Arabian men negotiated their positionality vis-
a-vis the L2 community in
which they lived and studied English as a second language (ESL), and
how they each engaged in different discursive practices (Davies & Harre,
1999) in order to achieve fuller participation in the various L2 worlds
that became important to them. The study takes data from a larger
research project that looked at nine adult learners enrolled in an intensive English program (IEP) in the United States, the focus here being
on the processes by which learners of a particularly politicized and racialized cultural group (Muslims of Arab descent) were able to renegotiate
their peripherality through their ongoing, and often incongruent, interactions in the larger L2 community. I begin by discussing the conceptual
orientations and literature that shaped this investigation, including a discussion that situates the research problem within broader discussions of
race, Islam, and TESOL in post-9/11 contexts.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE

REVIEW
Aimed at exploring the complex, and often contentious, relationship
between L2 learners and the social worlds in which they participate, this
study drew on theoretical orientations that view language learning as participation in a linguistic community and that regard language learning
itself as a situated social practice. The communities of practice framework
(CoP; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) is often cited by those who
are interested in how L2 learners form identities as they move from
peripheral to full participation in social worlds, and how that participation is or is not sanctioned by those in power within those worlds. In
their original framework, Lave and Wenger (1991) conceptualized
peripherality based on their theoretical concept of legitimate peripheral
participation (LPP). LPP was seen as a positive and necessary point, a
position of possibility, in which newcomers are situated within a commuPARTICIPATION, IDENTITY, POSITIONALITY: SAUDI ELLS IN US

35

nity of practice. The concept suggested an opening, a way of gaining

access to sources for understanding through growing involvement
(Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 37), with the learners novice status seen positively by the expert community (rather than as a reason for exclusion)
in order for the learner to engage on a path toward full participation.
Interestingly, as the CoP framework has been applied to L2 contexts
(Leki, 2001; Morita, 2004; Norton, 2000, 2001; Toohey, 2000), it has
been found that LPP, as Kanno (1998) argued, is not how it is (p. 128)
and that learners are often blocked from the very resource that is vital to
their acquisition of the L2: opportunities to interact with native speakers
(p. 129). In other words, L2 learners are not always offered LPP, their
paths toward full participation are not always sanctioned, and L2 learners
can be denied access to community resources as a result of local biases
around categories of gender, race, and linguistic ability. How learners
negotiate those structures of marginalization and bid for more powerful
stances remains an important topic of investigation (Lantolf & Pavlenko,
2001; Norton & Toohey, 2011). This study aimed at addressing this issue
by looking more closely at the activities and interactions that take place
at the periphery of communities of practice, conceptualizing that space
as a dynamic site of struggle in which learners construct their identities
through their ongoing discursive practices within those communities.

IDENTITY AND AGENCY AS DISCURSIVE PRACTICE

Poststructuralist approaches to second language acquisition recognize that L2 learners are engaged in a dialogic relationship with society, one in which context is negotiated rather than presupposed, and
in which speakers must continuously negotiate their identity positions
relative to other speakers (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001; Norton &
Toohey, 2011). From these perspectives, learners identities, both in
how they are socially imposed and how they are self-articulated, can be
regarded as discursive practices, that is, social enterprises that involve
learners continuously engaging with a variety of discourses constructed
around their multiple identity positions, including, among many
others, their racial and cultural identities. Weedon (1997) emphasizes
the constitutive role of discourse, discursive referring to ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and the
relations between them (p. 108). Complementary to that view, Davies
and Harr
e (1999) put forth the idea that to know anything is to know
in terms of one or more discourses (pp. 3435), with discourse understood not as a property of an individual, but as a multi-faceted public
process through which meanings are progressively and dynamically
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achieved (p. 35). In the same theoretical vein, a learners agency is

understood as a socially situated, culturally bound process. As Butler
(2004) characterizes it, agency is action that is, somewhat paradoxically, made available by the discursive parameters within which we all
exist; she wrote, If I have any agency, it is opened up by the fact that
I am constituted by a social world I never chose (p. 3).
A view of identity and agency as situated enterprises gives particular
meaning to the processes by which L2 learners negotiate participation
in L2 communities. In many ways, achieving fuller participation is a process of recognition and belonging, embedded in the dynamic discursive
frameworks of the social worlds in which they desire participation. With
recognition as the goal, learners engage with multiple discourses to
achieve what constitutes a coherent subject position (Davies & Harre,
1999). As Block (2007) puts it, all actors will position themselves and
others according to their sense of what constitutes a coherent narrative
for the particular activity, time, and place (p. 19). Related to this perspective are what Butler (2004) characterizes as norms of recognition, or
ways of being and doing that make individuals intelligible to others,
compelling them to engage in self-regulation and take up readable identities as a way of establishing recognition and carving out coherent modes
of belonging. For example, Ellwoods (2009) research illustrates how L2
learners (and experts) are pressured to operate within known discourses (p. 113); otherwise they risk uninhabitable identifications in
the community. The findings of Ellwoods study show that although Japanese ESL learners resisted racialized discourses in order to overcome
obstacles to participation, they also recognized themselves within those
discourses and took up positions that were aligned with negative stereotypes of Japanese students in the name of intelligibility (p. 113).
Respectively, one might expect that certain identity options are made
salient at the periphery of L2 communities in light of post-9/11 Islamophobic discourses that offer undesirable, yet widely recognizable, positions to learners who identify as Arab and Muslim. Furthermore,
because inequality and discrimination on the basis of religious and cultural identification are being seen as increasingly racialized, the topic of
racial identity and TESOL takes on new dimensions.

PERIPHERALITY AND RACE IN POST-9/11 CONTEXTS

To diverge from simplistic notions of race as a decontextualized,
objective condition, the concept of racialization has been used in the
literature to explain race as a socially constructed response to sociocultural, political, and historical conditions at a given point in time
(Rich & Troudi, 2006, p. 617). As such, the growing anti-Islamicism of
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37

recent decades is indicative of what some scholars have referred to as

the new racism (Cole, 1997), illustrative of how discourses of otherness and inferiority can be applied to ethnic groups on the grounds of
cultural markers such as shared religion, language, and beliefs. In fact,
new racism frameworks illuminate the increasingly contested terrain of
distinctions between categories of race and ethnicity, the particular phenomenon of Islamophobia showing how those two constructs can
become collapsed in real-world contexts. Dunn et al. (2007) have contended that Islamophobia is informed by both old and new logics,
being based not on some supposed biological grounds, but on religion and culture (including appearance) more generally (p. 567).
According to these authors, new racisms still draw heavily from discourses of otherness, yet fundamentally assist with structures of inferiority (hierarchies) and differentiation (exclusion) (p. 567).
Rich and Troudis (2006) report on Saudi MA TESOL students in
the United Kingdom examines some of the ways in which new racisms
operate in L2 learning communities where Islamophobic discourses
are becoming increasingly evident. In their report, the Saudi participants accounts of othering did not always reference race directly; however, they foregrounded religion, culture, and ethnicity in ways that
were understood as evidence of racialized Othering taking place
(p. 623). Further, post-9/11 discourses shaped how these learners saw
themselves in relation to the larger L2 community. They had expectations of being treated unequally on the basis of their religious and
ethnic identity, and as one Saudi learner put it: What is going on
around the world politically and what is going on in the Middle East is
always looming in the back of my mind (p. 623).
With regard to the social context of this particular study (the United States), I use the term post-9/11 narrative to represent dominant
storylines that have developed in the media and public discourses on
the topics of Islam, alien immigration to the United States, U.S. citizenship, and terrorism since the violent events of September 11, 2001.
Since 9/11, not only have there been remarkable changes in U.S. legislation and immigration policy that have resulted in exclusionary practices toward immigrants from the Middle East (Sekhon, 2003; Shaw,
2009), but reports of discrimination against Arab Americans (Kulwicki,
Khalifa, & Moore, 2008) as well as Middle Eastern university students
have increased (Norris, 2011). Although there has been a considerable
(and many say equal) outpouring of support for Arab and Muslim
communities in the United States, as well as public condemnation of
hate crimes and discrimination, the increased attention placed on
Muslims has resulted nonetheless in their transformation from
invisible to glaringly conspicuous (Salaita, 2005, p. 149). Howell
and Shyrock (2003) describe the repercussions of such visibility:
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In the aftermath of 9/11, Arab and Muslim Americans have been compelled, time and again, to apologize for acts they did not commit, to
condemn acts they never condoned, and to openly profess loyalties
that, for most U.S. citizens, are merely assumed. (p. 444)

In some ways, the inauguration of the Saudi Scholarship Program

could be viewed as a powerful public counterstatement to pervasively
negative post-9/11 sentiments, given that one mission of the program,
as articulated by a joint statement from former President George W.
Bush and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdullaziz Al Saud following their
well-known 2005 meeting in Crawford, Texas, is to expand dialogue,
understanding, and interactions between our [American and Saudi]
citizens so as to overcome obstacles facing Saudi businessmen and
students who wish to enter the United States (quoted in Shaw, 2009,
p. 60). As a result of such initiatives, the Saudi student population has
risen significantly not only in the United States, but also worldwide.
Thus, it is quite surprising that only a few published studies (e.g., Rich
& Troudi, 2006) have examined outcomes of this increased presence in
TESOL communitiesfor both students and TESOL professionals
against the backdrop of an increasingly Islamophobic climate.
The choice to theorize at the intersection of peripherality, Islam,
and ESL learning was an attempt to address this gap in L2 research
on this particular group of learners by examining (1) how structures
of marginalization shape Saudi learners L2 experiences and (2) how
learners manage these structures through their ongoing interactions
in the L2 community. Because the second goal involved examining
how learners construct agentive stances in the face of marginalizing
circumstances, the theoretical orientations toward agency discussed,
along with Lave and Wengers (1999) description of LPP, helped to
foreground an understanding of peripherality that was meant to leave
conceptual room for the actions and investments of human agents
(Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 427). Therefore, peripherality is regarded
here as a space of possibilityrather than entirely a space of exclusion
one in which multiple and divergent discursive options are available
by means of both structures of cultural reproduction as well as by the
interpretive processes of the subjects who engage with them.

METHOD
Participants and Setting
This study takes data from a larger study that looked at a group of
nine adult ESL learners studying in an IEP who were diverse in
cultural and linguistic background, age, and academic and profesPARTICIPATION, IDENTITY, POSITIONALITY: SAUDI ELLS IN US

39

sional trajectories. The larger study was not specifically guided by

research questions focused on race in L2 learning, but instead by a
broader research question: How do L2 learners negotiate the periphery in order to achieve fuller participation in L2 communities? From
this study, I elaborate here on two of the nine participants experiences, the two Saudi men of the participant group, Musa and Alim.
The salient themes that emerged across these cases provided a strong
rationale to further examine how structures of racialization influenced
their experiences as L2 learners, and are thus analyzed here from that
framework.
Musa. Musa (age 18) began learning English as a foreign language
(EFL) at a young age in Saudi Arabia, as part of the general school
curriculum, and he reported to have had much exposure to English
through American movies, the Internet, and video games available to
him in his home country. After completing high school in Saudi
Arabia, Musa began his study in the United States as part of a Saudi
Scholarship Program affiliated with a Saudi corporate manufacturer
with U.S. subsidiaries. The recipients of this scholarship were funded
for 1 year of study in ESL and prerequisite courses in math and
science, after which they were eligible to apply to a 4-year U.S. degree
program in engineering.
Alim. As a graduate student, Alim (age 26) was planning to
enter an MBA program following his ESL coursework, and his ESL
studies were also funded by scholarships from the Saudi government. Like Musa, Alim began studying EFL at a young age as part
of his school curriculum; however, being 8 years older than Musa
and established in his professional career, Alim had spent considerable time in other English-speaking countries before coming to the
United States. He travelled internationally with his father as a business apprentice, his family often vacationed in England, and he had
been employed in New Zealand the year before choosing to study
in the United States.
Research setting. The study took place in the IEP of a large university in the southern United States in which the participants were
enrolled in ESL classes. Townesville (a pseudonym for the city in
which the study took place) has been characterized as a haven of
countercultural attitudes and boasted a liberal identity, in contrast to
the general political leanings of the state (conservative). The universitys large international student population, along with the regions
historically strong Mexican American presence, contributed greatly to
the citys racial and linguistic diversity. Yet, despite these
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characteristics, the city continued to struggle with race relations and

showed signs of geographical segregation.

Data Collection
The projects focal goal was to contribute to research that examines
emic perspectives on second language learning, particularly by investigating the conditions for learning, and the issues of access of learners
for appropriation of practices of the social worlds that become important to learners (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 419). In order to meet
these goals, my orientation required an interpretive epistemological
stance as well as ethnographic methods of data collection.
I became acquainted with the study participants in 2009, when I took
on an active membership role (Adler & Adler, 1994) in an advanced-level
listening and speaking course in the IEP. As a participant-observer, I participated in many class activities, assisted the teacher at times, and interacted with students as part of class discussions. My participation in the
classroom community became a primary means by which to get to know
the participants and, informed by multiple data collection tools, co-construct their narratives of experience. Data were collected during a semester-long period, and data sources were (1) classroom observations, (2)
interviews, and (3) student-designed oral photo narratives. My participation and regular observation in the classroom community was an important source of data due to the course content and design, which
encouraged students to interact and draw on personal experiences that
related to course topics. Because I was not allowed to record class
sessions (except for students oral presentations of their photo narratives), I took detailed notes during observations. In addition to the observations, I conducted between 1 and 2 hours of formal interviews with the
participants, which were digitally recorded and transcribed. Finally, participants completed a photo narrative assignment in which they were
instructed to use photography to document their experiences. This project culminated in a formal class presentation in which they visually
arranged and discussed photographs that represented their goals, inner
thoughts, and views of themselves over time. Students presentations of
their photo narratives were digitally recorded and transcribed, as were
postpresentation interviews I conducted with participants.

Approach to Analysis
The data were primarily narrative, and I applied a framework for
analysis informed by narrative inquiry (Barkhuizen, 2011; Ochs &
PARTICIPATION, IDENTITY, POSITIONALITY: SAUDI ELLS IN US

41

Capps, 1996). Drawing from these perspectives, I viewed the research

activities as performative, sense-making practices through which the
participants identities were continuously iterated and transformed
through their telling and retelling of experience; all the while the
participants were building novel understandings of themselves-in-theworld (Ochs & Capps, 1996, p. 23).
As a co-constructor with the participants of their stories, my
approach to analysis necessarily involved narrative knowledging
(Barkhuizen, 2011), because both the participants and I were mutually
involved in meaning making, learning, and knowledge construction
(Barkhuizen, p. 395) at different stages of the research process. On
the participants side, this meant that they used a variety of narrative
forms (e.g., creating a photo story), some more interactive than others
(e.g., responses to guided interview questions), in order to engage in a
sense-making activity of their experiences as L2 learners abroad. I, as
the researcher, recognizing the interactional nature of their stories as
well as the context in which these were told, approached the data as
discursive artifacts by which to do continuous comparison of multiple
data sources both within and across individual cases. Data analysis
involved initially identifying broad categories of experience across data
sources and coding for themes. As initial conclusions were drawn, I
then triangulated across data sources (e.g., photo narrative, interviews)
to clarify and corroborate findings. Writing the findings represented
another layer of analysis; the two cohesive stories presented are the
product of connecting and emplotting salient themes. Member checks
(in which participants read and commented on the written findings)
were conducted with selected available participants, and Musa was one
of those participants.

RESEARCHER POSITIONALITY AND STUDY

LIMITATIONS
Given the foci of this article, it is important to acknowledge that, as
researcher, I occupied several meaning-laden social identities as a
female native speaker of English and member of the mainstream target language community. Although I am of Lebanese descent and
share physical features of that ethnic group, my positionality as an
American, a woman, and an outsider to the classroom community
undoubtedly shaped my interactions with the learners and my interpretation of their experiences. There were perhaps multiple advantages and disadvantages to this positionality, but I hoped that adherence
to specific research strategies (e.g., data triangulation, prolonged field

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engagement, member checks, peer debriefing) would enhance the

credibility and trustworthiness of the data presented.
Other limitations were present and should be noted. First, all of the
research activities were conducted in the participants L2 of English.
Working with advanced speakers and incorporating nonlinguistic data
sources (i.e., the photo narrative project) were means to reduce that
limitation. Second, Alim was one of the few participants who was not
able to participate in the postpresentation interview, and although participation in this activity would have enhanced the data, I was able to
confirm what I conjectured in my analysis through triangulation of the
remaining data sources.

FINDINGS
In the following sections, I present the stories of Musa and Alim,
with the goal of illustrating the ways in which these two learners negotiated participation outside of the ESL classroom. As will become
apparent, these stories diverge in critical ways, and I aim to highlight
how their different discursive practices were contingent on the multiple identity positions that were prioritized in the participants ongoing,
situated negotiations for participation. Musa, at age 18, was embarking
on his first experience outside of his home country, and his narrative
of participation centered on his opening to social worlds outside of
his familiar first language (L1) parameters. At age 26, Alim brought a
transnational expertise with him, having previously lived and worked
abroad, and his narrative of participation centered on how his ethnic
and religious identities were contested in the wake of 9/11. In both
cases, the learners constructed a sense of autonomy in managing the
disruptions they encountered, achieving identity positions that were
both iterative and transformative of their previous positions.

Musa
Musa was the youngest member of the ESL class in which I became
a participant observer, but he was one of the most confident in himself and his linguistic abilities. Before arriving in Townesville the fall
semester prior to my data collection, he had just completed high
school in his hometown, and he had plans to study engineering in the
United States for 5 years as part of the Saudi scholarship program.
One major aspect to participating in the program was that Musa felt a
strong attachment to a peer group of fellow Saudi scholarship recipients, because he had become acquainted with them in pre-travel and
PARTICIPATION, IDENTITY, POSITIONALITY: SAUDI ELLS IN US

43

arrival orientations, shared the same course schedule with them, and
lived with them in the same residence.
Upon his arrival in the United States, Musa reported to be enthusiastic and optimistic, familiar with the common myths of America
as representing opportunity and promise. I mean, come on, he told
me, its the land of opportunity. . . . Like, everyone around the
world, believe me, wants to come to America. He recognized the
symbolic value of participating in the U.S. higher education system,
and although he had plans to return to Saudi Arabia after 5 years,
he expressed an openness to assimilating to some degree. He arrived
in Townesville with short hair, a mustache, and a beard, all of which
were specific markers of his cultural and ethnic background. After
he arrived, he had shaved his facial hair and let the hair on his head
grow long, citing, I am not in my country. I can do whatever I
want. Musa was interested in participating in the social world of college undergraduates, he was enthusiastic and talkative in the ESL
class, and his story of his first year abroad centered on his emerging
independence and openness to new social and cultural groups.
By the time Musa began his second semester in the ESL program,
he had made several international student friends, yet he considered
the process of making American friends very different:
The international students are more open, well, not more open, but
more willing to meet. But the American, like, you are coming to them,
they have their own lives, own friends, own system, and you just bust
in, and, you know, some of them doesnt like it.

Here, Musa recognized himself as an outsider to expert community practices, aligning himself within the imagined community of
international students, which, although hardly homogenous in regard
to its members national identities, languages, and positionality vis-
a-vis
the host community, he understood as bounded by a common newcomer status. As we will see, Musa took up this position as a newcomer
and outsider to the larger host community, and these identities
informed his trajectory of participation.
Musa had a strong attachment to the places he considered home
in Townesville, and they represented important sites of belonging for
him that offered different opportunities for participation outside of
his Saudi group. As the study began, Musa was in his second semester in Townesville and had just moved out of the dormitory into a
private apartment. He had much regret over this decision:
In [the apartment], nobody cares about you. You just pay and thats it.
So you dont have some connection to the community. I dont know
my front door neighbors; I never see them.

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Reflecting on this move, Musa regretted not taking more advantage of

his time in the dormitory, having a lot of chances to meet new people.
Musas photo narrative included several images of the different
spaces of the dormitory. When I asked him if he associated any of
these images with a particular language (English or Arabic), he associated pictures of the dormitory building and his room with Arabic
because he had not yet met anyone outside of his Saudi group. However, when we came to the photograph of the dorm volleyball courts,
he reported to associate it with English, saying that it represented the
time when he started opening up to people. He started to play
volleyball, adding some Americans as friends.
There was another critical site of participation that Musa frequented, and that was the lobby of his dormitory. He explained its
importance:
And I started to go to the lobby. I didnt take a picture of the lobby,
[but] I like to spend more than 2 or 3 hours in the lobby with my laptop and stuff, so anyone who sits next to me, we talk . . . I had a lot of
questions so that keeps the conversation going.

For Musa, frequenting the lobby represented an intelligible (Butler,

2004) move toward the center of new social communities; he engaged
within recognizable storylines by interacting in public spaces that
offered opportunities for newcomers to participate. This is not to say
that the newcomer identity was entirely sanctioned by Musa. It was
largely imposed on him through community ideologies that placed the
onus on L2 learners (and newcomers) to initiate relationships with
experts. Yet, by recognizing his position within these discourses, he
took up a readable framework by which to negotiate a new and more
desirable positionality.
Musas reflections on his experiences suggest that his opening as a
person coincided with his opening to the multiple communities
around him. Musa described ways in which his time in Townesville
had been transformative. He had become more sociable and
explained: No matter where you put me right now, I know I can
make a lot of friends. Even starting from zero. For him, this was a
new way of being, as he considered social relationships, especially
between men, in his home country as very closed:
You cannot meet someone in a coffee shop [in Saudi Arabia]. You say
Hi and he says, What do you want? They always respond in a negative way. But now, here, I am really opening up to people.

Ultimately, this was a positive stance to achieve for Musa, it was both
iterative and transformative of his previous subject positions, and it
was realized through his situated navigation of multiple social worlds.
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45

As will become clear when I discuss Alim, Musa did not engage with
post-9/11 discourses in the same way as Alim did, and his novice identity was mostly associated with two factors: his age and his inexperience
with others outside of the Saudi Arabian culture. Musa, being 8 years
younger than Alim, was embarking on his first meaningful experience
outside of Saudi Arabia, and his trajectory of belonging reflected his
budding independence from the religious, familial, and cultural
parameters of his L1 world. Part of that trajectory involved a resistance
to Islamophobic discourses, taking up the position that racism was
only a problem if one was looking for it. He did report being initially
afraid of how he would be treated in the United States as a Saudi student, but in a joking manner. I thought they would put me in a cage
and walk me around the city, he kidded. He even reported being subject to racial profiling in the customs line upon entering the country,
getting picked out of the line for a special search. Yet, aside from
these initial experiences, he did not consider himself to be subject to
racism in his everyday life, finding most people in Townesville to be
open-minded and interested in his country. This is not to say that
Musa was excluded from racial discourses, but his uncritical acceptance of his outsider status points to the persuasive power of discourse
around citizenship, belonging, and national identity. As a factor that
distinguished his story from Alims, I will revisit Musas discursive
stance toward discriminating social forces later on.

Alim
Alim (age 26) was from a metropolitan city in western Saudi Arabia,
and he had been in Townesville for 18 months when I met him. His
prior year working in New Zealand was a significant L2 learning experience for him, which he described as the first time he had to use English for real communication both at work and in his social life. In
addition to his English-speaking colleagues, he had a native-Englishspeaking girlfriend from New Zealand who became an important
teacher to him. During the time I interacted with Alim, I observed
him to be confident in his oral language abilities, and he was highly
participatory in class; however, I observed him to have some difficulty
with literacy skills, and he was focused on improving his reading and
writing abilities in preparation for standardized graduate school
entrance exams.
Alims age, background, and experience afforded him a kind of
transnational expertise, one that was suggestive of cosmopolitanism
and that heavily factored into his openness toward social participation
as well as his success in achieving it. Here, I use the term cosmopolitan
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as it has been applied to personal identity models (Gunesch, 2004),

broadly, as someone who feels at home in the world (p. 256) and
who occupies a certain multicultural position . . . a willingness to
engage with the Other (Hannerz, 1992, p. 252). Although this framework for cosmopolitanism is arguably biased toward privileged, Western metropolitan conventions and does not fully capture Muslim
cosmopolitanism (Leichtman & Schulz, 2012), I drew from these concepts to understand Alims comfort level with integrating himself in
local social worlds while remaining invested in global trajectories, a
stance that is not necessarily common among all adult ESL learners.
Desiring to pursue a transmigrant lifestyle, Alim expressed ambivalence over returning to Saudi Arabia despite being a recipient of the
Kings scholarship, and he sought out new and meaningful experiences outside of his home country. I believe that the best thing is just
to have many experiences, he explained, to go around, travel
around, know more people. The life is fun. I believed Alims prior
interactions and current investments in both local and global spaces
factored into his openness and desire to access and participate in
social communities in Townesville. Over the three semesters that he
had already been in the IEP, Alim had lived in multiple campus apartments with multiple roommates (both international and American).
He took advantage of social spaces that allowed him to interact with
new people (e.g., apartment pool and recreation areas), and he
reported to be confident in meeting others. Unlike some of the other
participants in the study, he did not feel it was necessary to have an
American roommate in order to gain entrance into L2 communities.
By the time I had become acquainted with him, he had considerable
social connections and attended regular social gatherings with both
international and American students.
Still, Alims participation in his social worlds did not come without
conflict. Unlike Musa, Alim reported to have had experiences with
racism in the United States and was called to answer directly to post9/11 discourses that positioned him negatively. An initial example
occurred during our first talk when I asked Alim to describe his hometown. He began by describing his home city as more open, culturally
and religiously, than other regions in Saudi Arabia. Following that
initial description, I asked him how he felt about his home country:
SG: Do you like where you are from?
Alim: Yes. I mean before . . . we were like separate from the world. . . .
Now, its become more closer. People start to know about my country
and about our culture . . . its kind of fair now. Before that, most people
know what happened on September 11 and they thought we were bad

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47

people, but when they start to read about us, they know we can never
do these bad things to people . . . we do care about the other countries,
other cultures, religions. Because most people think that Muslims dont
care about other religions.

In this interaction, Alim recognized himself in post-9/11 discourse

and negotiated a stance within it. Although the topic of his religion
had not come up (it was the beginning of the interview), he chose to
take up a particular discursive position, as someone speaking to a
member of the community that has authored the marginalizing discourses he desired to resist. For Alim, the 9/11 narrative, although it
perpetuated inaccurate stereotypes of his religious identity, became a
cultural resource that he chose to draw on in constructing his stance
toward the larger L2 community (Davies & Harre, 1999). As will
become clear, he continuously drew on this discursive resource as he
made sense of his ongoing experiences as a Saudi student abroad.
Before arriving in the United States, Alim reported criticism among
some family members and friends over his decision. He explained, So
most people are like, If they [Americans] dont like us, why would we
go there? His father shared this position, to which Alim replied,
Why? If I follow the rules, follow the law of the country, so whats
wrong? He refused to align with either anti-American or anti-Islamic
discourses, explaining that the media can write whatever they want,
but there are some people behind that, [and] they want to make
something between us. His agency was voiced in his belief in his
true identity as a good person: I believe that I am doing good, so
every American can appreciate that because I am not doing something
bad. I just come to study. . . . I am coming to study in their college.
Despite Alims strong self-confidence in the face of these narrative
asymmetries (Ochs & Capps, 1996), that is, the discrepancy between
societys narrative of him and the one he chose to construct of himself, he was not excused from discriminatory storylines, and it is within
that framework that he had to negotiate his agency. I will next
describe two instances that illustrated the discursive parameters within
which he was working.
One example was observed during a relatively brief moment in the
classroom, before class began, as students were arriving and getting
settled. In these few minutes, the teacher was walking around collecting some completed activities, during which an informal class discussion was initiated on the topic of students weekend activities. Alim
mentioned that a Saudi friend of his was arrested after being pulled
over for speeding, and Alim spent the weekend trying to help his
friend navigate the legal system and assist in the bail process. Some
students were listening, others just arriving to class and getting settled.

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After Alim spoke for a bit, the teacher commented, Well, you dont
speed, especially if youre a guy, especially if youre from somewhere
in the Middle East. Alim did not appear to react to the comment.
Shortly after, the informal talk concluded and formal instruction
began.
I believe this interaction illustrated several of the discursive parameters within which not only Alim, but community experts such as his
teacher, were continuously working. As a longtime teacher who, on
several occasions, seemed clearly to value students diverse backgrounds and expertise, as well as the critique of mainstream values
that they often brought to classroom discussions, her comments cannot be easily or straightforwardly analyzed. Recognizing that the practice of teaching is complex work with multifaceted goals, I
interpreted her brevity as motivated by a need to transition to formal
class time. Further, based on my previous observations, I took her
comments to be a critique of the repercussions of 9/11, as a wellintentioned piece of advice for her students who, albeit unfairly, had
to deal with the realities of racial profiling in the aftermath of those
grave events. The interaction illustrated how differently positioned
actors engage differently with powerful structures of discourse.
Although neither speaker overtly imposed nor resisted these structures, they were nevertheless acknowledged through this interaction
and thus seemed to be reified.
A second example of how Alims experiences were continuously
shaped by racializing discourses was described to me by Alim, as he
opened up about some of the discrimination he encountered in his
efforts to become friends with Americans. We [Saudi Arabians]
really like American people, Alim told me, but all my friends,
before they meet me, they told me, We were afraid about you. We
dont want to be close to you. One critical incident he described
involved a new friend, Stanley, a 23-year-old undergraduate student
from the Midwest who became a connection for Alim to participate
in many social events with Americans. Shortly after the two had
become acquainted, Alim was paid a surprise visit by Stanleys father
who, upon hearing that his son had become friendly with an international student from Saudi Arabia, became concerned enough to drive
a considerable distance from Stanleys home state in order to confront Alim, without warning. Alim described the interaction with the
man that followed:
I said, I have no idea . . . what Osama or other person say. But I have
ideas. I mean, Islamic religion is a really good religion. It doesnt tell
us to hurt people. They told us if you kill someone without any right it
is equal to you kill[ing] everybody in this life. That is a really big sin if

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49

you did. So if Osama Bin Laden, or other [person], kill someone

because of Islam, I dont care about what he says. I care about the real
things. And [Stanleys father] is kind of like, OK, I mean, he told
me, It was nice to meet you. And after . . . Stanley said, [My father]
wants me to be with you. He wants me to be with you. He told me, I
want you to be with this guy.

Alim made sense of this critical event by interpreting it as one of

the interactional feats he had to accomplish as part of his bids for fuller participation. Like many Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11, he was
compelled to answer for actions for which he was not responsible
(Howell & Shyrock, 2003), having to discursively refigure himself
within post-9/11 narratives.
The result of this interaction was a new and transformative identity
position for Alim, one in which his legitimacy was recognized; as Alim
put it, the man now wanted him as a rightful participant in his sons
social worlds. However, in reading this interaction beyond its face
value, it becomes quite apparent that a number of discursive maneuvers were possibly achieved in this exchange.
In reflecting on this event, Alim narrativized his agency in his
refusal to align with such discourses. He said, I saw them [other
Americans] changing, but I didnt think I did much to change
them. . . . Im just normal. I am just as I am here like I am at home
or in any country. In one way, Alims reading is a valid reading,
and it is, in fact, how he saw himself as an agent: Attaching himself
strongly and proudly to his religious identity was the action by
which he was able to influence his present circumstances. However,
a more critical reading of this interaction reveals unequal power
structures at play, and the extent to which those power structures
shifted through this interaction is questionable. As characteristic of
broader discourses that place the onus on L2 learners to negotiate
for participation rights in expert communities, Alim was able to
achieve a legitimate status largely because he was granted the right
to speak by a more powerfully positioned expert. Thus, the circumstances around this incident provided an intelligible framework
from which Alim could act. Furthermore, it is quite possible that
Stanleys father was able to accept Alim without entirely changing
racial frames (Bonilla-Silva, 2006), making an exception for him as
an outlier to the status quo. Thus, this interaction showed not how
Alim simply unmade his position (and all by which it was constituted), but also how he was able to do something with what was
done to [him] (Butler, 2004, p. 3); his agency was situated, and
his viability was constituted by the discursive parameters under
which he spoke.

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DISCUSSION
This article reports on a study of two ESL learners of a particularly
racialized and politicized cultural group, and how they negotiated
their positionality vis-
a-vis the L2 community in which they lived and
studied. The findings show how these two learners engaged in different discursive practices (Davies & Harre, 1999) in order to achieve fuller participation in the various L2 worlds that became important to
them. The findings corroborate previous research that has documented the effects of post-9/11 Islamophobic discourses on university
students from the Middle East (e.g., Norris, 2011), and specifically
Saudi L2 learners (Rich & Troudi, 2006), presenting strong evidence
that these discourses served as powerful structures that created complex conditions for L2 participation. Still, these two cases diverged in
critical ways, indicating that the Saudi student post-9/11 experience is
far from a universal, homogeneous experience. Overall, the particulars
of these two cases point to some important implications for the study
of identity and agency in post-9/11 contexts, calling us to continue to
examine the diverse positions from which language learners are able
to participate in social life (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 414) and how
these multiple identity positions intersect in ways that inform their
ability to change their identity options and, ultimately, move from
peripheral to fuller participation.
In their accounts of negotiating fuller participation, Musa and
Alim foregrounded their identities as international student others, and
those identities positioned them in particular ways with respect to
the larger L2 community. As Norton (2000) found in her research
on immigrant L2 learners, unequal power relationships in L2 communities force the onus on novices to initiate relationships with
experts and to establish the right to speak, and, as I found in my
analysis, it was from that normative discursive frame that Musa and
Alim recognized themselves and carved out intelligible (Butler, 2004)
moves toward the center. In both cases, there was evidence to show
how learners not only resisted normative discourses, but also recognized themselves within them, took up positions within them, and
aligned with them in their negotiations for participation (Ellwood,
2009). In Musas case, intelligibility was most associated with his outsider, international student identity, and his agency to change his
present circumstances was negotiated by both resisting obstacles to
participation (opening up and agentively seeking out new relationships) and aligning himself with these normative discourses (recognizing himself as an outsider to expert practices who had to take up
readable ways of initiating relationships).

PARTICIPATION, IDENTITY, POSITIONALITY: SAUDI ELLS IN US

51

Like Musa, Alim was figured by the same international student

storylines, but his experiences of othering prioritized his religious and
cultural identities, calling him to answer directly (and unfairly) to
post-9/11 narratives that positioned him in negative ways and created
obstacles for participation. As Rich and Troudi (2006) report, Alim
interpreted the discrimination he experienced as not explicitly
grounded in race, but as based on his religious and ethnic identities.
In relation to those identities, discourses of differentiation and exclusion functioned both directly (as in the example with Stanleys father)
and indirectly (as in the classroom example of the teachers warning),
and constrained his opportunities to speak. Alim recognized himself
with these limited identity options, using post-9/11 discourses as a
cultural resource in constructing his stance toward the L2 community,
but he also resisted those discourses, consistently presenting an alternative reading of his identity. Although successful in gaining the right
to speak through his local interactions, it remains questionable
whether Alim established new terms for speaking in the broader L2
community.
Although we should not downplay the powerful social forces that
unfairly marginalized these learners, those that were critical to their
identity practices, the findings show evidence of learner agency. I
hoped to avoid the theoretical caveats of taking their agency at face
value by offering critical readings of their accounts throughout the
findings; however, I argue that it is important to recognize how these
learners acted agentively and to provoke discussion on what such
agency meant for their trajectories of participation. Keeping in mind
that this investigation was aimed at emic perspectives on L2 participation, there was evidence throughout their narratives that Musa and
Alim, by their own interpretations, perceived themselves as able to
shape their own trajectories and appropriate more desirable identities (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 414), and that they interpreted those
changes in positionality as representing fuller participation in the L2
community. It is highly unlikely that these changes in positionality
would have been achieved if not for their agentive choices. Neither
learner remained ensconced in familiar L1 circles, but instead continued to seek out meaningful relationships outside of their L1 worlds
despite the ongoing obstacles they faced. Even further, the means by
which they confronted dismaying obstacles (e.g., Alims argument with
Stanleys father) were laudable and should be understood as representing critical competencies (discursive and linguistic) of L2 learning and
participation.
This discussion would be remiss without acknowledging how additional discursive frames (i.e., stories not told here) could have been
available to these learners to inform their agency. A discussion of their
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stance vis-
a-vis the expert community should not neglect the multiple
and intersecting privileged social and gendered positions from which
Musa and Alim were able to act, and it is quite possible that second
language learners of different backgrounds may not have perceived
such stances as feasible. As men of middle- to upper-class backgrounds
who had previously occupied empowered positions in their home cultures, agency and a sense of self-determination were viable stances to
assume, even when faced with marginalizing social forces. Even further, as visa holders with considerable cultural capital (e.g., literacy,
previous schooling, transnational ties), Alim and Musa were afforded
legitimacy on other levels. As students in an IEP, their academic and
professional paths were sanctioned and supported, as was their accruement of powerful forms of symbolic capital (e.g., entrance into a university) that led to other forms of capital (e.g., degrees, employment).
This framework, along with their participation in the Saudi Scholarship Program, offered alternative narratives that legitimized their
trajectory, such as important political messages that validated their
experience as necessary and valuable to both U.S. and Saudi stakeholders. These are inarguably strong institutional sources of legitimacy, ones we know are not offered to all immigrants and L2 learners
in the United States. Acknowledgment of such forms of privilege
opens up discursive options for refusing racialized discourses, as was
quite possible in Musas case.
Overall, the study shows evidence to support an understanding of
the periphery of communities as more than a space of exclusion or
restriction for L2 learners, but a space of dynamic possibility, a site
in which powerful structures of cultural reproduction interact with
the interpretive processes and discursive histories of individual learners. Musa and Alim saw themselves as changing their stances and
claiming new positions by which they could act; however, the findings also point to how these actions were shaped, and even made
possible, by the inequitable power fields in which they played out,
structures that will likely continue to inform their participation in
some way.

CONCLUSION: SUGGESTIONS FOR PRACTICE

Although this study focused on L2 participation outside of the
ESL classroom, these findings bring up some important issues for
TESOL professionals. Given the prevalence of competing sociopolitical discourses evident in the wake of 9/11, along with an increasing
Saudi student population, it seems legitimate to ask: Do we see ourselves as stakeholders of the positive mission of programs such as the
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53

Saudi Scholarship Program? And if so, how do our classroom practices reflect that investment? How are the outcomes of such programs understood and translated by administrators and teachers
within institutions? Clearly, more research is needed beyond these
two case studies to argue strongly for changes in policy or practice,
and voices of students, teachers, and administrators need to be
heard.
In addition to these specific issues, I argue that the findings of this
study support implications for practice that have surfaced from L2
identity research as a whole, specifically those focused on adopting
critical perspectives on pedagogy (Canagarajah, 1999; Kubota & Lin,
2006; Norton, 1995). Given this studys findings, these critical perspectives should include ways that teachers facilitate learners in claiming
the right to speak outside the classroom (Norton, 1995), making
space in classroom discourses for deconstructing authentic expert
novice interactions. One way to do this is to make room for L2 narrative activities. As shown in the cases of Musa and Alim, L2 narratives
can mediate social practices that allow learners space to interpret
conflicts and define their identities through voicing agentive selves
(Hull & Katz, 2006, p. 71). For many learners, structures of racialization can be silencing, thus presenting obstacles to fuller participation
and community resources; for such students, it can be advantageous to
create classroom space for students to narrate, discuss, and analyze
authentic L2 experiences, with teachers facilitating critical examination of the multiple competencies that learners enact as they move
from peripheral to fuller participation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research would not have been possible without the participants who devoted
time and effort to the project. I would like to extend my gratitude to Professor
Diane Schallert for her thoughtful feedback on previous drafts of this manuscript.
I sincerely thank the TESOL Quarterly anonymous reviewers whose comments and
suggestions were invaluable in shaping the final version. I would also like to
acknowledge the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk for supporting
the writing of this manuscript.

THE AUTHOR
Shannon Giroir is a postdoctoral fellow at the Meadows Center for Preventing
Educational Risk at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests
include sociocultural influences on second language learning, culturally responsive teaching, and academic literacies.

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