Evolution of a global niche: or, how to use an identity crisis to your advantage

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in ANASTASIA ASHMAN,career,community,global niche,psychic limbo,videos

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By ANASTASIA ASHMAN

What comes after cultural disenfranchisement? After Expat Harem, the book? After expat+HAREM, the community site? In this slideshow I chart the evolution of my own global niche, along with expat+HAREM’s spin-off project: Globalniche.net.

When I moved to Turkey in 2003, the plan was to write a Southeast Asian complaint travelogue. Lost my voice! Abandoned on a snake infested island! Adrift in pirate-filled waters! But Turkey kidnapped me instead. You might know that bit of the story already.

Talking at the inaugural Istanbul “Dream, Play, Achieve” event of Turkish Women’s International Network at Microsoft Turkey  (view the 10 minute TurkishWIN video here), I filled in the blanks and gave a sneak peek into a new initiative expat+HAREM is developing: a private, educational and support community to equip people like us with the skills and tools tailored to our particular challenges.

We’re gearing up to put the theories we like to talk about here at expat+HAREM into practice. A workgroup to help you find *and* build your global niche.

Please visit Globalniche.net and join the Facebook page so we can keep you posted directly when the membership community goes live.

This is how losing my voice in Asia 15 years ago led me to create today an educational community of my psychic peers.


Trouble viewing the embedded video? Watch it here.

These are early days in the development of the Global Niche membership site, so you can be a part of its creation!

What is your biggest pain in operating to your true potential both professionally and personally? What do you want to learn how to do? What do you most need support for?

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Presenting the global niche evolution to Turkish Women’s International Network (a gathering of overseas Turks, repatriated Turks, Third Culture Turks and foreign professional women with ties to Turkey founded by Melek Pulatkonak) at Microsoft’s Istanbul offices. ⇒

Anastasia Ashman is a California-born writer/producer of neoculture entertainment based in Istanbul. This series covers what’s crossing the mind and desk of expat+HAREM’s founder.
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Related posts:

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  2. Identity messages: about expat+HAREM’s founder
  3. She said, she said: quotables of expat+HAREM’s founder
  4. Push-me pull-you loyalty: where are global citizens torn?
  5. Publishing and the digital world citizen

Tagged as: cultural mismatch, digital nomad, educational community, expat, expat harem, expatriate, gate-jumping, global citizen, global niche, identity crisis, location-independence, Melek Pulatkonak, membership community, membership site, Microsoft Turkey, psychic location independence, slideshow, Southeast Asia, Turkey, Turkish WIN, Turkish Women's International Network, video

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  • http://www.rosedeniz.com Rose Deniz

    Pacing and boundary setting – biggest (growing) pains. Not too fast, not too slow, taking all the pieces and sewing them together, being okay when something doesn’t fit. Support for managing internal and external drives/goals – that’s part of pacing, too. Going inward to work on projects and to write, and then sharing them in ways that are fruitful.

    • http://about.me/anastasia.ashman Anastasia

      Thanks Rose, I appreciate your nuanced reply!

      …balancing frustration and burnout (going too slow, going too fast), that’s a big one . Especially when one’s environment is either changing or not traditionally supportive of what you’re trying to do. I think we can underestimate how much time and effort things will take, and the need to pace ourselves when something starts working!

      I like what you say about finding peace with a thing that doesn’t fit. It may just be a matter of time before that thing-that-doesn’t-fit finds a more integrated place to be in your whole scheme of things…so being able to manage (oh yes, another!) limbo state.

      Can you give us an example of an internal and an external drive (that may be at odds with each other)?

      • http://www.rosedeniz.com Rose Deniz

        Right now the best example I can give is wanting to attend self-care and work quietly, almost be unseen (internal), but wanting to maintain an external presence (social media, share, collaborate). Somewhere in the middle is the voice that tells me when to say yes and no, but heeding that voice takes energy (hence, back to self-care).

  • Anonymous

    At the moment my biggest pain is trying to figure out how to be both at the same time – especially in both places at the same time. It’s very disorienting.

    • http://about.me/anastasia.ashman Anastasia

      Thanks Tara. Yes being-both-this-and-that-at-the-same-time is a precision balancing act — and even if you manage to ‘achieve’ it in your responses, there often is still the matter of the people around you who are one or the other (and not both, not receptive to both, etc). Oh boy. Work. Cut. Out. For. Us.

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