International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1999-00

'How bizarre,' most people said to me when I told them I was going to Wales to study international politics. Wales seems like an unlikely hotbed of international politics. However, those familiar with the discipline understood. The Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth is one of the best in the world. Indeed, I applied for a British Chevening Scholarship more because I wanted to study at Aberystwyth than for any other reason.

Since I have been at Aber I have enjoyed and benefited from the department. However, the greatest benefits of studying overseas I have found not in the lectures of brilliant professors or even in lively seminar discussions, but in mundane conversations and occurrences.

For instance, last week I had a conversation with a Welsh farmer in the library. Like farmers all over the world, his family is struggling to survive. He told me about the strategies that he and those in his community are using to cope and to create circumstances where small farmers can survive.

It is conversations like the one I had with Richard, a long-long-long-time social justice activist about the diminished spaces and opportunities for citizen involvement in politics in the current moment of neoliberalism. We spoke of the similarities and differences of our experiences of neoliberalism, a global force that is manifested in common and specific ways but which seems to be transforming the meaning and practice of politics all over the world - forcing out 'the people', transferring citizenship rights from 'the people' to capital.

It is conversations like the one I had with a local woman in the gym about what being Welsh means to her, about why much of her life has been devoted to carving out space and opportunity for a distinct Welsh community to thrive.

It is in these exchanges as much as in my formal academic work that my understanding of politics has been deepened and challenged. One of the main benefits of being overseas, I have found, is the opportunity to explore and think in different contexts and circumstances - and thus, with different, and sometimes unexpected, results.