"Maybe, I Belong Somewhere": Exploring Identity and Language Shifts of Indonesian Graduate Students in Transnational Contexts

International students’ identity negotiation has become a foremost aspect to be examined in the fields of applied linguistics, psychology, and intercultural communication. However, the scholarly focus has predominantly centered on the experiences of international students from culturally prominent or extensively studied backgrounds other than Indonesia. Although there is existing literature covering Indonesian families living abroad, it has not adequately addressed the dynamic and multifaceted experiences of Indonesian graduate students specifically studying outside Indonesia, nor the factors influencing their identity and language shifts. The present study aims to investigate the complex cross-cultural adaptation of Indonesian students, contributing to an understanding of their identity and language shifts while navigating lives in transnational contexts, including academic, social, and cultural settings. A total of 6 Indonesian graduate students who enrolled in master’s and doctoral programs in the United States participated and shared their narratives in the interview processes. By employing thematic analysis, the findings demonstrate that the participants’ adaptations during their relocation contribute to their identity and language shifts in several ways. First, the adoption of localization as the personality becomes the foremost way to contribute to their identity shift. The participants’ active and passive internalization of languages and cultures enable them to create a hybrid identity and negotiate their transnational belonging. Second, their language shifts can be seen in their language choice and the maintenance of Bahasa Indonesia. The participants tend to maintain the use of Bahasa Indonesia and can practice code-mixing and code-switching between English and Bahasa Indonesia while interacting with other Indonesians at the same time. The study also reveals the changing of directness employed by the participants. They emphasize to use of more direct utterances while communicating due to their adaptations to the new cultural norms. Therefore, these changing performances enable overseas Indonesian graduate students in transnational contexts to (re)construct their identity. This present study suggests further research to use different types of data collection including observation and ethnography to obtain a more inclusive and deeper analysis of the experiences of overseas Indonesian graduate students. In addition, this study also allows us to address a more comprehensive understanding of Asian students as a whole and helps to avoid stereotypical Asian students’ identities in previous research.