Resistant Capital and the Perspectives of African International Students on Blackness in America

• In Event: The persistent oppression of racism in global higher education

Proposal

Relevance: In the wake of the recent SCOTUS decision to overturn affirmative action in the United States (Sangal et al., 2023) and other racially motivated policy decisions such as the ban of teaching critical race theory in schools (Morgan, 2022) or Black history (Pendharkar, 2023), Black people living in America are bound to question their sense of belonging in a society that appears to be against them. African international students find themselves in a unique position as they figure out what it means to be Black in America while navigating the general landscape of college life in a new country.

Theory/Context: The Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) highlights the various types of capital that individuals have and they include; linguistic, aspirational, navigational, social and resistant capitals. While this model was originally applied to students of color who are US nationals, there are nuances to its application to the case of African international students in US colleges and universities. One such nuance is how resistant capital, which is concerned with how students of color push back against race based discrimination and injustice, is characterized in the case of African international students. Because African international students have different racialized experiences than Black people who have lived most or all of their lives in the US (Thelamour & Mwangi, 2021), they therefore have different positionalities and thus different strategies of resistance.

Inquiry: Using narrative inquiry within a qualitative study design (Bhattacharya, 2017), interviews with self-identifying African college students were conducted to learn about their general experiences as well as racialized experiences as they engaged in their studies at a predominantly White institution in midwest America. Our research questions for this study were:
- What are the conceptions of race and racism expressed by African International Students in a US university in the Midwest?
- How does Yosso’s (2005) idea of resistant capital apply to African International students in a US institution of higher education located in the Midwest?

Findings: The main themes that emerged from the data fell into three major categories:

1. Interpersonal racism versus systemic and structural racism
African students report experiencing few to no incidents of overt interpersonal racism in their experiences on the campus of a predominantly white institution of higher education in Midwest America. Our participants were not ignorant about matters of race and racism in America and some of them spoke freely about how their awareness of the skin color was especially heightened in the context of studying in the USA in a predominantly white locale. They were also aware of local and globalized systemic racism, stating examples of inequitable access to COVID vaccines along racial lines and the role of apartheid in the societies of South Africa and Zimbabwe. It is possible that having unsustained interactions with other spheres of US society beyond the college campus would limit exposure to incidents of interpersonal racism. While our participants' ideas about race relations in the US varied, all of them stated that they felt confident to achieve their individual academic and personal goals despite their race.

2. Identity as Black versus identity as African
Participants discussed figuring out what it meant to be Black in the US as it was a part of their identity that was never pertinent prior to studying in the US. One participant stated he became Black when he moved to the US and another narrated the dissonance that she felt when entering demographic information into forms that did not have a box to enter her ethnicity. In line with what other studies have found (Thelamour et al, 2019; Thelamour & Mwangi, 2023), participants did not naturally identify with Black American people when they first moved to the US to study. However, we found that students who had lived longer in societies that operate with racial stratagems began to identify more with Black US nationals and therefore were more likely to build solidarity with local and global movements for racial justice. We also found evidence that public and social media influenced how African international students made sense of the implications of being Black in America.

3. Refusal to focus on racism as resistance
Overall, the participants aimed to avoid getting entangled in direct conflict and sought to resolve racially charged situations in a conciliatory manner. Instead, they focused on what was within their control by “picking their battles” as a strategy to block out negativity and protect their mental health. While this approach may be understood as passive or avoidant, it recognizes the permanence of racism and the need to conserve energy that should be directed toward a greater vision. There was evidence of having a wealth of aspirational capital for all the participants in this study, and the greater vision for all our participants was to achieve their individual goals for the benefit of themselves and their communities. We viewed these actions as evidence of resistant capital. This refusal to focus on racist acts can be understood through the words of Toni Morrison (1975), “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being”.

Conclusion: In this study, we attempted to extend the framework of CCW to African international students’ racialized experiences. While the CCW has much value and use in highlighting the assets of students of color, we found this framework does not efficiently encapsulate the unique racial positioning of Black African international students in the U.S. In addition to working hard to adapt to a new country and culture, African international students also contend with understanding how their Blackness positions them within this new context. Our findings provide US higher education with opportunities to support Black solidarity among African international students and African American students. The role of the university in fostering community and solidarity among students from diverse cultural backgrounds to enable their sensemaking and sense of belonging requires a deep understanding of the unique needs of African international students.

Authors

• Seyoung Hong, Michigan State University

• Grace L Tukurah, Michigan State University