Black bodies, White rural spaces: disturbing practices of unbelonging for ‘refugee’ students

Abstract

In global times, when the forced migration of refugees from war-torn countries like Sudan impacts the demography of once ethnically homogenous schooling spaces, I consider the need to better understand the geographical making of racism. This article explores the lived experience of two newly arrived Sudanese students studying at a rural high school in Australia. Using Foucaultian theory, and Foucault’s theories as they have been taken up by Judith Butler, I explore the production of educational exclusions at a rural school. I investigate the Sudanese students’ struggle for belonging against particular discourses of rural Whiteness. In the students’ rural schooling space, their Black bodies are highly visible and are discursively cast as ‘out of place’. I examine the way discourses of rural Whiteness produce schooling exclusions that implicate schools in the spatial regulation of unbelonging.

Keywords:

• ethnicity
• ethnography
• Foucault
• school-based research
• inequality/social exclusion

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Edgeworth

Dr Kathryn Edgeworth is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania, Australia, where she teaches humanities and social sciences. Prior to this she practised as a secondary school teacher in rural and remote Australia for 10 years. Kathryn has a particular research interest in pedagogies that trouble schooling exclusions for ethnic and religious minority students. She has published in the areas of post-structural research methodologies, ethnic and cultural diversity, and social justice and schooling exclusions.