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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Troubling encounters: Exclusion, racism and responses of male African students in Poland

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This paper examines the experiences of a group of *African students in Poland, with the aim of understanding the affective and practical coping tactics they employ in response to social exclusion and racism. The analysis of coping strategies follows an in-depth overview of experiences of racialisation, othering and racial discrimination in both institutional and ordinary, day-to-day encounters. A significant body of literature and research highlights ways in which racism functions through material practices as well as overt and veiled dynamics of exclusion and territorialism. The study sheds light on the bodily nature of racism, highlighting the recurrent practices, contexts and interactions which lead to exclusion and the experience of feeling different, out of place and unwelcome. Among forms of coping, the analysis highlights ways in which individual and group identity of the students is defined and shaped through processes of recognition of kinship based on dimensions of experience in the Polish context, as opposed to concepts of shared cultural or national origin. The empirical approach was in-depth interviews as well as focus groups. Participants were recruited from universities located in the cities of Warsaw and Krakow. (*The terms “African student” and “international student from Africa” are simplified categories used to reference a diverse group of students from multiple countries in the region.)