Navigating Hidden Borderlands: The Role of Cultural Heritage for Black African Refugee Students in American Higher Education

• In Event: Migrant's and refugees' experience of higher education and the labor market

Proposal

In this conceptual paper, we bring together, expand, and adapt existing conceptual frameworks to bring the experiences of Black African refugees to the forefront of education scholarship, and to promote increased support for them. While we explore theoretical and conceptual possibilities spanning the disciplines of human geography, social work, and sociology in this emergent assemblage, our emphasis is on the experience of Black transnationals and the Black diaspora within the context of higher education in the United States. An estimated 26 million people worldwide are refugees, fleeing conflict, persecution, environmental devastation, climate change, and economic instability (UNHCR, 2020). Over six million of these are from Africa, well over half of whom are women. For every refugee, a complex sociocultural process begins when they depart their home country. Arguably, “the refugee-immigrant enters a geographic, political, and socio-historical space of redefinition...she has been evicted from her native social architecture and is faced with the daunting need to relocate self in a new culture” (Smith, 2013, p. 12). As previous scholars have shown (Baker et al. 2019; Clothey & McCommons, 2022; Murray & Gray, 2023), this forced migration provides an important space for educational institutions to promote safety and opportunity.

In addition to the dissonance that comes with leaving one’s home culture, refugees may also face inequality based on race, gender, religion, and economic status in their host country. Between 2017 and 2018 alone, 86 bills designed to exclude refugees were introduced to the U.S. legislature (Grace & Heins, 2021). As Black people, refugee African students are excluded from certain spaces and resources because Blackness is marginalized in the U.S. (George Mwangi, 2014). Structural inequalities are also reproduced in educational institutions, resulting in unequal outcomes for Black African people, including admissions, curriculum, and advising (Parker III et al., 2021). Due to their awareness of both the opportunities and challenges of U.S. higher education, we posit that for Black African students in higher education cultural heritage might be a key resource for navigating their new environments.

Yet little is known about these students. In 2021, 7% of refugees were enrolled in colleges or universities across the world (UNHCR, 2024). Black African refugees who relocate to the U.S. often rely on educational institutions to aid in the integration and expansion of their economic opportunities (Kiteki, 2021; Lenette, 2016; Rowe et al., 2016). Accordingly, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to advance a scholarly conversation regarding Black African refugee students as existing in a borderland that hides and (dis)locates their existence. Previous studies have examined refugee populations in other settings, such as New Zealand (Anderson et al., 2021). We build on this important work and engage in theorization about the welcome that Black African refugee students receive (or do not receive) in the United States. We explore their mobilities via transnationalism and connections to their social network capital through cultural heritage and highlight the liberatory possibilities that emerge when scholars keep Black African refugee students in mind. Studying the conditions and policies that affect this population allows us to investigate multiple social phenomena at once, including migration, anti-Blackness, linguicism, and xenophobia. By understanding these layers of Black African refugee student life, scholars can become more agile in designing student support policies in service of this group and many others affected by the same phenomena. Accordingly, the question that motivates this project is: how can the notion of hidden borderlands help education scholars better understand the experience of Black African refugees?

We situate our conversation with Black African refugee students by describing their demographic context, then we discuss how the idea of borderlands helps us theorize about this student group. Next, we discuss how notions of hiddenness and movements extend the borderland lives of refugee students, drawing on both U.S.-based and international literature. We then show how cultural heritage is one of many resources that this student population can use to persist in higher education. Specifically, we theorize how the capital students possess because of their transnational mobilities may be employed in the service of educational persistence. This theorization is important because to the best of our knowledge, there is no underlying theoretical frame for the existing literature about cultural heritage in this population. We conclude with strategies to resist the hiddenness and pathologization of Black African refugee students in higher education, including culturally responsive campus programming and facilitating connections with community organizations.

Authors

• Meseret F. Hailu, University of Georgia - Athens, GA

• Ane Turner Johnson, Rowan University