A critical understanding of students’ intercultural experience

Non-essentialism and epistemic justice

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12682425
AutoresZhuo Min Huang (0000-0002-1354-8492, Manchester Institute of Education, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, autor de correspondencia)
Año2022
Volumen33
Número3
Páginas247-263
Fecha de publicación2022-05-04
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Journal of Intercultural studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0952-391X • E-ISSN: 1469-8439
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14675986.2022.2069393
OpenAlexW4283220567
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas40

In this article, I discuss a critical understanding of students’ intercultural experience at a UK university. I critique the potential issues of: a) using essentialist categorisations to understand students’ intercultural experience, and b) imposing epistemic injustice to students by undervaluing their epistemic agency in intercultural experience. Based upon the paintings of five students, I problematise the essentialist categorisations reproduced in the students’ meaning-making about their intercultural experience, which could reinforce prejudice, neo-racism, otherisation, and segregation. The students were, however, able to negotiate with such an issue of essentialism through a non-static and back-and-forth process in their painting. They also demonstrated an active epistemic agency in navigating the complexities of their intercultural experience. Therefore, I suggest intercultural research to adopt a non-essentialist and epistemically-just lens to understand students’ intercultural experience in the increasingly fluid world

Agency (philosophy · Epistemology · Essentialism · Pedagogy · Prejudice (legal term · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Higher Education Practises and Engagement · International Student and Expatriate Challenges · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology