Toward Intercultural Becoming in U.S. Teacher Education: Exploring Time and Space in Intercultural Collaboration

In this chapter, I explore the intercultural interactions and collaboration of preservice teachers in a U.S. teacher education space through a critical lens that challenges the linear and objective perception of time. By drawing from the Korean cultural concept of inyeon and Anzaldúa’s notion of nepantla, I delve into various causes and conditions, as well as cyclical and multidimensional temporality, in students’ collaborative efforts to address topics and envision pedagogical practices. This chapter positions the conversation around time in teacher education and international collaboration as an imaginative endeavour that opens up possibilities yet to be realized. By normalizing aspects that have been undervalued or misunderstood within the confines of the objective and linear notion of time, this study argues that embracing uncertainties and contradictions can lead us to new horizons, transcending the constraints of this dominant understanding of time.