Veiled aggression: Saudi women international students’ experiences of microcolonization in the United States

Abstract

The 2016 presidential election in the United States entailed presidential candidates warning of ‘radical Islam,’ ‘Jihadist violence,’ and ‘refugee terrorism.’ At the same time, random and targeted violence against Arab Muslims has soared since the election. In everyday encounters at school, work, or in casual conversations, Islamophobia is enacted through microaggressions. This narrative inquiry study examined the ways in which Saudi women graduate students studying in the US experienced and negotiated instances of microaggression at the intersection of ethnicity, religion, and gender. Data was collected through unstructured in-depth life-story interviews and transcripts were analyzed using narrative analysis, with specific readings for moments of microaggression. Findings yielded that participants encountered various forms of microaggressions on a daily basis from faculty, classmates, and strangers. We propose microcolonization as a subcategory that addresses the women’s specific lived experiences within the niches of larger neo-imperialist contexts.

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