TransAtlantic Perspectives
UNC TAM student Julia Walker and University of Hannover student Nadine Wolter reflect on collaborative online international learning (COIL) course POLI 733, taken in fall 2020 with Prof. Dr. Christiane Lemke.
As children of the Information Age, most of us have the privilege of accessing an infinite network of knowledge every second of our lives. In fact, nowadays, we don’t even have to click a button. We can simply speak and the world is at our fingertips. However, perhaps the most revolutionary component to this network, is not our access to knowledge, but our access to each other. The past several generations are the most globally connected generations in history. We are now consistently one click away from anyone with a computer and a broadband connection anywhere in the world — and we have begun to make full use of this in our education. The limiting impacts of COVID-19, have forced us all to reimagine how we view communication, and from this, our global connectedness has actually grown stronger.
This semester, we were given the opportunity to participate in a multinational course put together by the incredible joint efforts of the TransAtlantic Master’s Program at UNC and the University of Hannover in Germany, and it is from this course that we began to get to know each other. As part of this course, we joined together for lectures even though we were physically thousands of miles away to tackle important topics, topics like: who are we, what makes us similar/different, how does where we live impact our lives, and, most importantly, how does our nationality impact our perceptions of each other.
To further promote exchange, the course was separated into small groups consisting of six students from both sides of the Atlantic. Being assigned to reflect upon public opinion and transatlantic perceptions, we decided to focus on three main subjects: environmental politics, health care and the handling of the COVID-19-crisis and racial injustice. Those issues were chosen as we perceived them as monumental global challenges in 2020 and estimated that a common policy of the US and the European countries would help to resolve them. In addition, those issues are perceived differently in the US and Europe, making an investigation of those differences an imperative in order to understand the sources of imbalances and subsequently promote transatlantic cooperation.
These were of course massive topics of discussion, and we were asked to channel that discussion, our group members were asked to come together to write a brief paper on these perceptions.
In order to not only talk about transatlantic relations but practice transatlantic cooperation our group met frequently in video conferences and exchanged ideas and perspectives. Like that we not only had the possibility to engage in discussions about transatlantic relations and world politics but also gained knowledge about the different perspectives upon the upcoming elections in the US and the various educational systems of the home countries of the group members as some of us were studying in the US, others in Germany or the UK.
After discussions and joint research we concluded that the events in 2020 have acted as catalysts for new impulse on perspectives on those three issues. The COVID-19-crisis has challenged health systems on either side of the Atlantic, leading to an at least growing interest of US-citizens to deem the government responsible for providing health care — something that has been a standard in most European countries for decades. A similar trend has emerged in US public opinion regarding a rising awareness about racial injustice and police violence in the aftermath of the violent death of George Floyd. This issue also led tens of thousands of European citizens to protest against racial discrimination and police violence in the streets of Berlin and other European cities. Regarding climate change and environmental politics the perspectives still diverge as Europeans tend to perceive this issue as more urgent than the US public.
Still, the groups’ research and discussion among group members have proven once more that there is neither one sole US- or European perspective upon issues such as health care or transatlantic cooperation to overcome the challenges of COVID-19 nor that these perspectives are unchangeable. They are fluid and multi-layered just as the structure of the transatlantic relationship itself — and here lies potential for transatlantic cooperation to overcome global challenges.
We are very appreciative of the opportunity for growth that this transatlantic learning experience has provided me. As a child, we are taught to have perspective. But oftentimes, people misunderstand what having perspective truly means. We create artificial scenarios based upon unhelpful stereotypes that only serve to actually damage our understanding of ourselves and others. The most important of having perspective isn’t manufacturing some hypothetical “other” for fictitious personal comparison — it is opening meaningful dialogues with others from across the world that have seen and experienced other walks of life. That is what we enjoyed the most about the TransAtlantic Master’s Program and this course — the opportunity to know each other and learn more about the true meaning of perspective. By getting to know about our circumstances and perspectives, we actually learned more about our own lives along the way.
