Paper short abstract:

Based on the interviews conducted in 2020, this presentation features the findings on how the changing contemporary Lithuanian cultural and social landscape influences the identity negotiation and (re)construction of degree students from non-EU countries studying at the Lithuanian universities.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past decade, Lithuania has turned from the students "exporting" country into an attractive destination for international students seeking the higher education degree, especially from other Post-Soviet, South-East Asian countries and Africa. International (or transnational) student migration is one aspect of global movement that connects individuals of diverse backgrounds and induce the cultural diversity of the host countries, especially in the countries like Lithuania, which are more culturally and ethnically homogeneous. The challenges international students face in a new transnational environment such as language and cultural differences, racial hypervisibility, legal and social restrictions, uncertainty of belonging, living under temporariness, the feeling of "otherness" are significant factors in defining new perspectives and construction of student identities. According to the initial results of my study, international students may distance themselves and/or be less burdened by the social norms and cultural behavior inherent to their nationality, ethnicity or culture, they are more free to reconstruct a new identity in tune with their inner values and new experiences in a new environment. Using the concept of transnational social field (Glick-Schiller, Levitt, 2004) I will discuss how the international degree students from different non-EU countries (India, China, Nigeria, Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhstan, etc.) studying at the Lithuanian universities, negotiate their identities by taking the intermediate position - the more comfortable "third place" between the cultural practices characteristic to their home country and that of the current host country and what role the rapidly changing contemporary Lithuanian cultural and social landscape play in that process.