Humans of Geneva Part 1: Third Culture Kids

I feel that there are three different bubbles within the bubble itself that is Geneva. First, you have the local genevois who are Swiss through and through with cheese running through their veins. Next, you have the international community made up of transient professionals, immigrants and refugees. And last but not least, you have third culture kids, an entirely different breed altogether.

They don’t quite fit into any of the previous two bubbles, so they exist in a miniature realm all their own. These are the kids who are born and raised in Geneva or Switzerland, but grow up in private, nomadic worlds, usually attending Swiss international schools surrounded by peers with a similar upbringing. You might even call them the OG third culture kids, since the world’s first international school traces back to the International School of Geneva.

So, what is a “third culture kid”? The term was originally coined by the American sociologist Ruth Useem in the 1950s for expatriate children who spend their formative years in a culture other than their parents’. “We’re sending Brian to a Swiss boarding school” is a TV trope we hear often in comedies with aloof, workaholic parents and the rebellious children they never wanted. While this is one example, the stories of third culture kids are actually a rich tapestry of lived experiences that are often difficult to translate.

Third culture kids tend to move from place to place, developing a globe-spanning “third culture” that’s shaped by their parents’ multicultural backgrounds, the countries they’ve lived in and the diverse cultures they’re exposed to by their peers who come from all over the globe. The “third culture” that’s birthed from this amalgam of identities is uniquely their own. Home for them is everywhere, and nowhere, all at once.

In the first installment of Humans of Geneva,

Parents’ background: Swiss, Ukrainian, American

Places lived in during formative years: Geneva, Kiev, Moscow, USA, London