Overview

From international tuition hikes and discriminatory immigration policies to racially motivated violence and geopolitical tensions, international students encounter numerous political issues while studying abroad. Yet it is often assumed that international students are politically passive and disengaged rather than actively contributing to the political life of higher education institutions and the host country more generally. The present book challenges this assumption by bringing together the work of scholars from various fields of study to examine international student activism, advocacy, and political engagement in higher education settings. Drawing upon different research approaches, this book showcases scholarship exploring the multifaceted ways in which international students engage with the “political” as well how the policy environments and socio-political atmospheres in both host and home countries shape these experiences. Far from being passive bystanders, international students have exercised their political agency through diverse forms of collective action over the past century, and this edited collection calls for a renewed focus on the political dimensions of the international student experience.

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9781666935301

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Challenging assumptions that international students are apolitical, this timely book brings together empirical studies and conceptual essays to illuminate the multifaceted political experiences of international students. Spanning disciplines and national contexts, the thought-provoking contributions call for rethinking the politics of student mobilities in the age of rising ethnonationalism and geopolitical turmoil. --Chris R. Glass, Boston College CindyAnn and Reuben Rose-Redwood's edited volume is an indispensable resource for scholars interested in the social communities and tensions that define the landscape of higher education. In addition to offering evocative historical and recent case studies of the individual and collective activism of international students, this book breaks new ground by advancing a robust theory of international student subjectivity and political engagement. That political activity takes different forms and evokes different institutional reactions across different spaces and scales--from everyday struggles of belonging on campuses to wider national and geopolitical struggles over rights and policy. The editors and contributors define not just a nuanced way of studying international student lives and voices but also a new ethical register for valuing the agency and contributions of those students within universities and the wider society. --Derek Alderman, University of Tennessee Knoxville While the political activities of domestic students are often a source of significant public debate and academic interest, those of international students have received much less attention. This edited collection helps to redress this balance by shedding light on the multifaceted ways in which international students - in a wide range of national contexts - can be considered political actors. Moreover, by drawing on some interesting historical analyses, it shows how such political activism is not necessarily a new phenomenon. Overall, this is an important contribution to the literature on international students, and on political activity within higher education more broadly. --Rachel Brooks, University of Surrey

Author Information

CindyAnn Rose-Redwood is associate teaching professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Reuben Rose-Redwood is professor of geography and associate dean academic in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

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