Spaces within spaces: Teaching French culture from a British-Mauritianperspective and its relationship with GTA liminality and identity

Abstract

Due to its varying nature, GTA positionality and teacher identity and how it is understood is a notoriously difficult subject. Though this can provide GTAs with unique experiences, it also means that we have to navigate these identity tensions on a daily basis, and navigate this liminality and the spaces it inhabits. Liminality, a term developed by anthropologist Victor Turner, can be defined as ‘neither here nor there, betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial’, and is a term that continues to be used in the field of anthropology and wider afield. The majority of literature has identified how this can be a problematic term, with GTAs being both part of and absent from the literature. This paper has no intention of disagreeing with that, but it does seek to offer a more positive outlook and personal reflection on the matter. In this paper, I will argue that we can use our own personal liminalities as an asset in navigating GTA liminality. In order to illustrate this, I will use my own identity as a British-born Mauritian and how it informs my teaching of French culture as an example. The paper will first engage with what we mean by (GTA) liminality, before moving onto how I perceive this in the light of my own liminalities. I will then reflect on how this was received at the Warwick PGT Conference 2025, how this has caused me to further reflect on my experiences, and how these personal reflections connect to broader reflections on GTA teaching practice and identity.