Colonization in US Universities

We explore the question of whether the United States is colonizing knowledge through international students. We are joined by two experts on the topic: Maria Carolina Sintura (Sintu) is a teacher and Ph.D. student in the English Department at UCSB. Her research brings together the Legal Humanities, Critical University Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Women of Color Feminisms as she studies the discourses constructed around the figure of international students and scholars at the U.S American University, and Rohini Roy is a 2023 MALD candidate at the Fletcher School with a focus on gender and intersectional analysis and human security. Currently, Rohini’s research focuses on developing queer methods for social research.

We discuss how the US has historically dominated the production and dissemination of knowledge and how this has had a disproportionate impact on people from developing countries. We also explore the ways in which international students are often forced to assimilate into US academic norms, which can lead to the loss of their own cultural and intellectual traditions.

Resources on the topic

Resources shared by Rohini Roy:

• Anumol, Dipali, and Rohini Roy. "The Racism of Being Tolerated: The Experience of Being Brown Women in ‘International Relations.’" Tufts Observer, 12 Dec. 2022, tuftsobserver.org/the-racism-of-being-tolerated-the-experience-of-being-brown-women-in-international-relations/.
• Tracking Epistemic Violence: Tracking Practices of Silencing. By Moya Bailey. Hypatia, vol. 35, no. 4, 2020, pp. 878–899. doi:10.1111/hypa.12813.
• Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006.

Resources shared by Maria Carolina Sintura:

• Ferguson, Roderick A. “The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference.” Chapter 6 in The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference, by Roderick A. Ferguson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
• Ferguson, Roderick A. 2012. The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference. Difference Incorporated. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press. Chapter 5: Immigration and the Drama of Affirmation.
• Christian, Barbara. “Diminishing Returns: Can Black Feminism(s) Survive the Academy?” New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985-2000, edited by Gloria Bowles et al., University of Illinois Press, 2007, pp. 204–15.
• Hong, Grace Kyungwon. “The Future of Our Worlds: Black Feminism and the Politics of Post-Diaspora.” Social Text, no. 26, 2008, pp. 1–24. doi:10.1215/01642472-2008-004.