Expat Women - A Report from the Families in Global Transition (FIGT) Conference

Attendees at the Families in Global Transition (FIGT) Conference in Washington DC last month caught the 'f' word with relish and tossed it back and forth in break out sessions, in networking groups and across the dining tables. Jo Parfitt of Summertime Publishing threw the notion down from the podium during the plenary panel on Spouses Travelling and Relocating Successfully, facilitated by Becky Grappo. And the F-word is focus. In the global life led by many of those present, focus is sometimes lost in personal lives and careers as yet another overseas assignment looms and the general mayhem of moving on ensues.

Book ended by two compelling women Dr. Anne Copeland and Joanne Grady Huskey, the FIGT Conference welcomed attendees from the academic, diplomatic, military, and corporate and NGO sectors, as well as service providers and those in the whirlpool of global relocation.

Erudite and quietly elegant Dr. Copeland of The Interchange Institute opened with her keynote address, Ways of Knowing: From Control Groups to Support Groups in which she explained the connection between research and life with the words, Welcome to the bridge! After a short précis of how her path had brought her to FIGT, she categorized research under three headings: Duh! Research; There! Are You Satisfied? Research; and Really? Wow! Research. After clarifying the categories Dr. Copeland finished with essays by women in her writer's group, relating the cultural differences that had affected their transition from life in their passport countries of Taiwan, China and Japan to life in the United States.

It was a fitting start to the Conference as Dr. Copeland reinforced one of the tenets of FIGT – bringing research to life by using it to "more efficiently and expeditiously help and support families in global transition."

The offers on choice were many and diverse from concurrent sessions on The Impact of Confucianism on Asians' Crossing Culture by Isabella Min and Mary-Barrett Anders and Developing a Personal Model of Resiliency for Expatriates presented by Duncan Westwood, to Kitchen Table sessions on Gay and Global: How to support LGBT colleagues and families who cross cultures given by Kilian Kroll to Reinventing Yourself as an Accompanying Spouse presented by Alan Paul, author of Big in China.

The birth of the FIGT Chapter in South Korea was announced; the first in Asia, and other delegates were encouraged to form chapters in their part of the world. The rumble in the hallways was that Switzerland, tagged closely by The Netherlands, was in the running for starting Chapters. The FIGT Conference does that to people. It is the place, wherever it is held, where energies are ignited; ideas flow as quickly as the coffee, and the hardest part of the day is saying goodnight to reconnected friends, and friends just made. It is a conference that allows networking across not only the sectors but also the continents.

The second plenary panel, Into the Future, facilitated by Ruth Van Reken, one of the founders of FIGT, and Alice Wu, an international consultant at Cornell University focused (there is that word again) on how TCKs, now in their career phase, are leveraging the benefits of their cross cultural upbringings in their adult lives. Ronda Weber, American brought up in Honduras; Adrienne Benson Scherger, American whose formative years were spent in Africa; Roy Dunbar, British of Jamaican parentage; Vania Broderck, African American raised in South America, Asia and Africa and Laila Plamondon, bi-racial American Bangladeshi brought up on two continents made up the panel. Each had a tale to tell. Some of difficulties faced in dealing with re-entry to, and assimilation in, the passport country; some as Roy Dunbar said "of seeing the common threads rather than obstacles" which help build those cultural bridges; and some talked of the intangible benefits that their childhood brought their adult experiences.

Another word came out of FIGT in 2011. Gone now is the derogatory moniker "trailing spouse". Those stalwart women, and men, who support their partner's careers in countries not their own are now to be referred to as STARS - Spouses Traveling and Relocation Successfully, which in essence is what FIGT is all about.

Flying in from Thailand, Julia Simens gave her session Action, Identity, Success or Failure: What makes an expat child grow? She quizzed the attendees to answer the question "when does a child take failure from an action (I failed) to an identity (I am a failure) and why this follows them around the world as they relocate." Balloons were blown and deflated when statements read encouraged or discouraged the blower, habits of the mind were shared that instilled either poor self-confidence or confidence in children, and those in the room were challenged as to which universe they lived in, supportive or negative. Simens implored those present "to help our kids shape their own thought processes"and there was much nodding of heads as the room emptied at the end of a long day.

A day that started with Early Bird Discussions made possible by presenters willing to forego an extra hour of sleep in order to share their expertise with people functioning on different time zones. Coffee and croissants were consumed as talk across the tables sometimes veered off course for a moment as experiences were traded, before being nimbly reintegrated into the subject matter.

The closing keynote speech started when actress, dancer, inter-culturalist and genuinely nice person, Joanne Grady Huskey walked on stage inviting us to join her on a journey as she stood under a black umbrella. As the umbrella closed, the metaphor for the loss of security was obvious to all. She proceeded to toss photos, a puppet and business cards out of a briefcase giving visual reference to family, friends and careers lost in a peripatetic lifestyle.

"I had to give up the definition of who I was," she said.

After an address that traced her mobile life as it traversed the tragedy of the US Embassy bombing in Nairobi to her involvement in Tiananmen Square to founding a school in Chennai, India she ended with a plea to all living the global life "to be the bridge, and connect to the cultures we live in."

Bridge, the word used inadvertently by both keynote speakers to firstly connect research to life, and secondly to be involved with those in the countries we are guests in. Two and a half days of listening, sharing and learning of new research and best practices from people studying global trends in transition management, as well as from those living the life, gave the FIGT Conference an energy that revitalized those in the realms of relocation, and reinvention, in new countries and cultures.

And so the Families in Global Transition 2011 Conference ended as it had started – on a high, and with a couple of new words in the global lexicon: Focus and STARS. Two words that will surely help the different sectors assist relocating families worldwide, and the actual families in global transition to use the F-word and stay focused, and become STARS.

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