Volume 6, Issue 1 (MARCH ISSUE 2025)                   johepal 2025, 6(1): 90-106 | Back to browse issues page


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Abawi Z. (2025). North/South Hierarchies: The Coloniality of Refugee and Asylum Seeker Access to Education as an Epistemic Good. johepal. 6(1), 90-106. doi:10.61186/johepal.6.1.90
URL: http://johepal.com/article-1-1112-en.html
Abstract:   (376 Views)
This conceptual piece explores the differential treatment of refugee and asylum-seeker access to higher education as an epistemic good within host-nation states along racialized hierarchies and geographies. By drawing on Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice, this work problematizes the discourses of deservingness in relation to refugees and asylum-seekers of the Global South accessing such state goods of the Global North; and the power relations that undergird constructions of humanity. The paper discusses barriers to refugee and asylum-seekers with respect to policies and practices within higher education in host nations of the Global North, in particular, the UK and EU; and how such policies and state actions operate against the backdrop of whiteness and coloniality. The paper outlines extant policies pertaining to the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers in accessing education; the politics of othering people of the Global South; and explores the possibilities for anti-colonial resistance and racial equity in education in the European context and beyond, as refugee populations are projected to surge across the globe.
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Type of Study: Research | Subject: Special
Received: 2025/01/6 | Accepted: 2025/03/18 | Published: 2025/03/31

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