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Renegotiating identities in international academic careers

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 1796–1798 (2022)Cite this article

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Many academics move countries in pursuit of career opportunities. With every move, personal identities are renegotiated as people shift between belonging to majority and minority groups in different contexts. Institutes should consider people’s dynamic and intersectional identities in their diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

The experiences of international Black and Indigenous individuals and people of colour in academia are the product of intersecting patterns of racism, sexism, classism and xenophobia1. Here, we discuss how these experiences further intersect with the international mobility of individuals, which is a hallmark of academia. We contend that this mobility introduces other barriers, including challenges associated with simultaneously holding different identities.

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Fig. 1: Holding simultaneous identities.

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Acknowledgements

A.E. was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. M.N.U. was supported by the National Science Foundation (DEB-2016678). We are indebted to many students, professors, family members and friends for insightful conversations. In particular, we thank A. B. Hurtado, M. W. Pennell, S. Winton, and N. Balyasnikova for their feedback.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Alejandra Echeverri, Laura Melissa Guzman, Sylvia Heredia, Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela & Maria Natalia Umaña.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Alejandra Echeverri

  2. Centre for Conservation Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Alejandra Echeverri

  3. The Natural Capital Project, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Alejandra Echeverri

  4. Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Alejandra Echeverri

  5. Marine and Environmental Biology Section, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Laura Melissa Guzman

  6. Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Sylvia Heredia

  7. Department of Environmental Studies, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela

  8. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Maria Natalia Umaña

Authors
  1. Alejandra Echeverri
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  2. Laura Melissa Guzman
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  3. Sylvia Heredia
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  4. Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela
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  5. Maria Natalia Umaña
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Contributions

A.E., L.M.G., S.H., N.O.P. and M.N.U contributed to the writing of the manuscript. S.H. did the figure.

Positionality statement We are five Colombian-born ecologists, descendants of Spanish settlers and mixed-blooded mestizos. We identify as cisgender women, and two of us are mothers. All of us have moved from Colombia to European (Norway, England, Switzerland), Asian (China, Indonesia) and North American (USA and Canada) countries to advance our careers. Our new roles have forced us to renegotiate our identities as minority Latinas in STEM fields. In Colombia we identify as being part of the majority group when it comes to our racial identity, but simultaneously we belong to minority groups when it comes to our profession. All five of us work in US and Canadian universities in biology, zoology and environmental studies departments.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alejandra Echeverri.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Echeverri, A., Guzman, L.M., Heredia, S. et al. Renegotiating identities in international academic careers. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 1796–1798 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01895-9

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