Negotiating Australian academia as a historically white settler colonial institution: A comparison between Muslim and non-Muslim students

Abstract

In Australia, there is a dearth of research applying the theoretical lens of critical race theory to explore Muslim university students’ experiences in higher degree education institutions. The prevailing approach has been to focus on institutional barriers and policies. This article deviates from such studies by framing the analysis in terms of a comparison between Muslim and non-Muslim white students in higher degree education institutions in New South Wales (NSW) Australia in order to operationalize whiteness in Australia's settler colonial society as a central category of analysis. The article seeks to explore how Muslim and non-Muslim students experience and respond to the university as a white institution, considering how Muslim students engage in both adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies in response to the university as a white institution, and how white, non-Muslim students experience the normativity, invisibility and hegemony of whiteness in the university.