Our research question goes as follows: “We will be studying the “place-making” process for students at Casa Artom, in Venice, Italy, how their abroad experience has formed and developed their personal identities, and how these new identities have changed their perception on citizenship as well as their future goals concerning how they will engage the public sphere both locally and internationally after their Venetian abroad experience. We are studying these aspects in order to determine practical application of the theoretical citizenship models of place-making authority, identity formation and how an individual defines (redefines) citizenship due to various influencing factors.”
We expected to discover that Venice has become a place and not a space for most of the students of Casa Artom. Those students would in turn admit that place-making authority during their abroad experience would begin with themselves and not from other outside forces. We also believed Venice would be considered a place moreover than Casa Artom. We felt that students would feel they have a more well-rounded identity, feel more so open-minded and have established a deeper worldview. And that those students will be unsure of how use their experiences to re-engage first the American public sphere and second the world’s public sphere, but will admit they deeply desire to find a way to do so.
Through the series of a interviews conducted we were able to discover that students felt Casa Artom was considered a place, whereas Venice was uniformly considered a space because they felt Venice as too large to interpret as personable. Students felt that place-making authority was produced by their peers and the Venetian people, more than from themselves. Both of these aforementioned findings were contrary to our original hypothesis. However, we correctly predicted that students would feel they had a more well-rounded identity, admit seeing how they were moreover open-minded and believe they have a deeper understanding of the world. Specifically interviewees noted themselves as independent, culturally aware, world travelers and overall better versions of themselves. This in turn came with the development of a new found personal yet robust definition of citizenship for our interviewees over the course of the semester. Furthermore, while students did not know specifically how they would re-engage the American public sphere they seemed excited about the process of figuring out how. Generally the interviewees loved their study abroad experience and will try to do what they can to maintain the lessons they've learned here while continuing to improve themselves as individuals without reverting back to their old ways of life now that they have matured and grown.