To Know About TCKs

Today there is an increasing number of materials published which credits the existence of a self-recognized community of global nomads.

The international bestseller book published (Pollock and van Reken 2009) has become a bible for TCKs, and an essential reading for those who want to know about TCKness, their characteristics as a collective (or tribe, as some like to jocularly say), and the personal benefits and challenges of a TCK profile (i.e. emotional and developmental issues).

After an increasing number of articles, books and academic dissertations develop aside topics, such as how to make transitions from one country to another (e.g. Lemieux 2014) or on TCKs and education issues (i.e. Zilber 2009). Most of this material offers psychological support to TCKs or parents of TCKs emphasizing the effects and benefits of a cross-cultural life: how TCKs can manage their difference among other citizens that are not aware of their condition; how to recognise the particulars of being rootless and restless so TCKs do not feel odd; how to understand particular relational patterns and therefore encourage meetings among TCKs so they do not feel isolated; and, how TCKs can provide a completely different perspective on today’s global world (i.e., intercultural management). Increasingly, a number of reading materials had been published also on the practicalities of how international corporations, for example, could benefit from people with cross-cultural abilities (e.g., Brinkmann and van Weerdenburg 2014).

Next to this literature, it exists a prolific literature of personal accounts either under the form of formal narratives (e.g. Bell-Villada and Sichel 2011; Gardner 2014), recounts of TCK literature writers (Eidse and Sichel 2004, Rauwerda 2012), personal, educational and professional counsellor’s advises (e.g. Siemens 2011, Bushong 2013), or simple short publications in e-magazines, personal blogs, and very active Facebook groups, e.g., Tckid-Third Cultural Kids, Third Cultural Kids Everwhere.

In a world increasingly touched by electronic communication and social media, it is worth mentioning the extensive use that TCKs use of internet, both a source of information, communication and community building. In a future blog entrance, I will talk about the use of Twitter for chat forums, here I would just mention 3 web pages containing major information on TCKs: TCKWorld, TCkids, and FIGT.

All this material is certainly a source of information on TCK’s personal and community self perceptions, interesting enough to be analyzed by any researcher who wishes to related their personal and collective experiences into cultural heritage issues. For instance, how they relate their rootless to the countries where they lived, how they describe they relation to places where have been living, and how they collect objects that matter for them during their transition processes.

Bell-Villada, G.H. & Sichel, N. (eds.) 2011. Writing out of Limbo. International Childhoods, Global Nomads, and Third Culture Kids. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Newcastle upon Tyne.

Brinkmann, U. and van Weerdenburg, O. 2014. Intercultural readiness. Four Competences for Working across cultures. Palgrave. Hampshire.

Bushong, L.J. 2013 Belonging Everywhere and Nowhere: Insights into Counseling the Globally Mobile. Mango Tree Intercultural Services.

Eidse, F. & Sichel, N. (eds.) 2004. Unrooted Childood. Memoirs of Growing Up Global. Nicholas Brealey Publishing/Intercultural Press Boston/London.

Gardner, M.R. 2014. Between Worlds. Essays on Culture and Belonging. Doorlight Publications.

Pollock, D.C. & R.E. Reken 2009. Third Culture Kids. Growing Up Among Worlds. (revised edition). Nicholas Brealey publishing. Boston/London.

Rauwerda, A.M. 2012. The Writer and the Overseas Childhood. The Third Culture Literature of Kingsolver, McEwan and Others. McFarland. Jefferson/London.

Simens, J. 2011. Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child: practical storytelling techniques that will strengthen the global family. Summertime.

Zilber, E. 2009 Third Culture Kids - The Children of Educators in International Schools. John Catt Educational.