A Doctoral Experience from a Multicultural and Multidisciplinary Perspective

This chapter provides a multicultural and multidisciplinary perspective on the identity constructions of a doctoral scholar, by engaging with a range of discourses and by challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about the purpose of doctoral studies. Such a kaleidoscopic perspective allows an ongoing reflective process, generating numerous strategies to negotiate power relationships with supervisors and sociocultural positioning within the larger academic community. This chapter explores how one’s biography influences the way that one learns through a doctoral degree, by negotiating identity constructions in the intricate relationships involved in a constant process of becoming. This account is dialogical in nature, with a reflection on the doctoral trajectory by a doctoral candidate, interspersed with a critical response by a doctoral supervisor, both couched in a Critical Discourse Analytical framework.