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Racial sensemaking and international student mobility: mainland Chinese students in Singapore and Malaysia navigating multiculturalism and multiracialism
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Abstract:
Using the concept of racial sensemaking, we analyse the reflexive experiences of multiculturalism and multiracialism among mainland Chinese international students in Singapore and Malaysia interviewed in 2023-2024. We treat racial sensemaking as a dynamic process that shifts across time and space, shaping migrant decision-making and behaviour. Our analysis highlights three spatio-temporalities: (a) racial sensemaking from afar, focusing on pre-migration subjectivities; (b) racial sensemaking in the contact zone of embodied encounters, centring on experiences at destination; and (c) racial sensemaking and future-making, exploring aspirations and projections of self onto a changing world stage. Using a critical race approach, we foreground microlevel experiences of multiculturalism and multiracialism that underpin and reshape education migration. This perspective
enriches economistic explanations of study aspirations and experiences by situating them within racialised geopolitical dynamics. We urge international student mobility scholars to pursue contextually grounded inquiries attentive to how racial sensemaking informs migration trajectories and educational futures.
Description:
Date:
2026-02
Authors:
Koh, Sin Yee
Shutler, Madeleine Clare
Yeoh, Brenda S. A.
Publisher:
Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
