Desi and Religious? A critical racio-religio student identity developmental experience of South Asian international students

• In Event: Roundtable Group 14
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Race, Religion & International Student Agency

Proposal

Data released by The Institute of International Education’s (IIE) Open Doors Report (2022), describes demographic information about the nearly 9,50,000 international students currently present in the U.S. higher education system. The literature around international students is largely monolithic and addresses the acculturative stressors (Gómez et al., 2014; Smith & Khawaja, 2011) and focuses on the deficits in English language (Light et al., 1987; Martirosyan et al., 2015). Other stresses, such as financial (Sherry et al., 2010) and housing uncertainties (Calder et al., 2016; Obeng-Odoom, 2012), are also widely explored in various contexts.

Research in student affairs and higher education pertaining to student identity development around the international student and scholar population has not been adequately explored. In expanding a subsection of this, I aim to explore their lived experiences as they relate to religious, spiritual, and/or secular identities (RSSIs) (Nielsen & Small, 2019). International students enrich the diversity of college campuses and when they learn to develop their RSSIs, it enriches the campus climate in myriad ways (Andrade & Evans, 2009; Johnson & Hayes, 2003; Quinn, 2008). Thus, my qualitative research questions ask 1) How do international students from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan develop their RSSIs while in a higher education institution in the U.S.? And 2) What are some barriers to the RSSI development of these international students?

In exploring relevant theories to uncover answers to the research questions proposed, I draw from the ‘Critical Religious Pluralism Theory’ (CRPT) (Small, 2020). Small (2020) described her two main goals in developing the book and CRPT: first, addressing the centrality of religious privilege, oppression, hegemony, and marginalization in the maintenance of inequalities between Christians and non-Christians, in the U.S. context, and second, developing an action plan for utilizing the CRPT theory for when it exposes the aforementioned inequalities.

Another theoretical source is DesiCrit. Harpalani (2013) describes ‘Desi’ (pronounced as They-See) as referring to people of South Asian descent around the world. He speaks to the informal racialization of South Asian Americans through various religious referents. Particular views of Christianity as an advanced feature of the Western civilization as compared to Hindu and Buddhi traditions as exotic and mystic, whereas Islam as a dangerous ideology for the basis of terrorism. These differing “religious images all play into the racial ambiguity of South Asian Americans (p. 157). He expands on the racialization of South Asians as the inferior European race that followed religions other than the Christian faith, namely Sikh and Hindu, and thus creating stratifications and demarcations.

Merging the two theoretical frameworks, I seek to question how international students from these South Asian countries navigate and develop their RSSI identities, and what the barriers might be. CRPT delivers itself to questions of the intersectional social identity and ‘DesiCrit’ brings the critical awareness of one’s racial ambiguity to the forefront of U.S. racialization formations. Both these constructs can help answer specific questions about how ‘Desi’ international students perceive their racial ambiguity in accordance (misalignment) with their RSSIs.

Author

• Gaurav Harshe, University of South Carolina