The Anthropology of Being an Expat Kid

When you think of the word anthropology, you might think of scientists digging up fossils or living with tribes in the jungle. But really, anthropology is the study of people, how we live, think, and interact. And if you’re an expat kid, you’ve basically been doing anthropology your whole life.

Maybe not intentionally, and definitely without taking notes, but moving between countries means constantly noticing how people do things differently. You start paying attention to things that most people don’t think twice about: how people greet each other, how they talk to adults, what counts as polite, how families spend time together, what people eat, and even what kind of humor works in one place but not another.

When you grow up in one place, most of these things just feel normal. You don’t question them because everyone around you does them too. Moving somewhere new makes those invisible rules much easier to see. Suddenly, things you thought were universal turn out to be cultural.

Learning the rules

One of the strange things about arriving somewhere new is that nobody gives you a guidebook explaining how everything works. You watch other people and figure it out as you go. You notice how students speak to teachers, how people make friends, what jokes everyone understands, and what is considered normal at school.

At first, you are very aware of these things because you’re trying to understand your new environment. Eventually, you stop noticing and start doing them yourself.

Then you move again, and the process starts over.

I think that constant observation is something many expat kids become good at without realizing it. You learn to read a room because you’ve had to enter enough rooms where you didn’t immediately understand the rules.

There is something very anthropological about this. Anthropologists try to understand people’s behavior within the cultural context that gives it meaning instead of immediately judging it according to their own assumptions. Growing up between cultures can teach you a less formal version of the same thing. Something might seem strange at first, but once you understand why people do it, it often makes much more sense.

Where are you from?

There is probably no question more complicated for an expat kid than “Where are you from?”

You might have a passport from one country, have spent most of your childhood somewhere else, and have parents who grew up somewhere completely different. You can feel connected to your family’s culture without feeling completely at home there, while also knowing the culture where you live extremely well and still feeling like an outsider sometimes.

Research on Third Culture Kids has found that home can become connected to people, memories and experiences from several different places rather than one geographical location.

That makes sense to me. Sometimes home feels less like one place and more like a collection of things you carry with you.

So what is the “third culture”?

When I first heard the term Third Culture Kid, I assumed that “third culture” meant simply mixing your parents’ culture with the culture of the country where you grew up.

The original idea was actually more specific. Sociologists Ruth and John Useem developed the concept in the 1950s while studying American families living in India. They used “third culture” to describe the shared world that developed among people living across cultures, particularly within expatriate communities.

I think international schools are a good example. You can have students from dozens of countries sitting in the same classroom, all with completely different backgrounds, but they also share experiences that people who have never moved countries might not immediately understand.

You know what it feels like when a close friend suddenly leaves. You know the awkwardness of answering “Where are you from?” You might meet someone new and discover that you have both lived in the same completely random places.

Those shared experiences become a culture of their own.

Looking at your own culture

This is probably what connects my experience most directly to why I am interested in anthropology.

Growing up around different cultures has made me notice things I probably would not have questioned otherwise. I notice different ideas about family, friendship, independence and politeness, but I have also started to realize that my own assumptions are cultural too.

That is what I find most interesting about anthropology. It isn’t only about studying people who live differently from me. It is also about learning to look at my own everyday life with enough distance to realize that many things I thought were simply “normal” were actually things I had learned.

I don’t think moving between countries automatically makes someone more open-minded. You can live in ten countries and never question your assumptions. What moving can give you is the opportunity to notice that those assumptions exist.

Maybe that is one of the unexpected things about being an expat kid. You spend so much time learning how other people live that eventually you start looking at your own culture with the same curiosity. 🌍