Academic returnees have become a trending issue recently. One of the issues is about the reported challenges when they returned back to their home country and re-integrating into their academic environment. Regarding this issue, this research aims to explore the experiences of Indonesian academic returnee returning back to Indonesian academic sphere particularly the returnee who teaches English in higher education. To unpack their experiences, narrative interviews are used to collect data. The data were garnered from four participants (English lecturers) who have been returned from their overseas study maximum five years ago. There are three women and a man who participated in the interviews. The present research shows that there are three types of challenges faced by Indonesian academic returnee, academic and social culture. In regard to academic culture, the returnee often experienced different conceptions of their status of being returnee. They are often positioned as an ‘almost perfect’ lecturer who knows everything, while social culture is closely related to their inconvenience of being on-time and disciplined persons. This research is expected to provide a more nuanced challenge of academic returnee re-integrating into the academic milieu.

Keywords: Indonesian academic returnee, challenges, reverse culture shock.