This paper examines our experiences (international students) in British Columbia, Canada, highlighting our unique challenges and the potential of creative engagement tools to foster inclusion. Specifically, the study investigates how Theatre of the Oppressed was utilized as a platform for critical dialogue, community building, and advocacy among international students at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). Key findings illuminate the multifaceted challenges we face, including cultural and weather shock, lack of comprehensive pre-arrival campus orientation, immigration policy instability with a focus on international students working hours and their immigration procedures, rising tuition fees, insufficient support at the campus, and social isolation. Through discussions facilitated via Theatre of the Oppressed, we articulated a preference for informal, inclusive settings that reduce the rigidity of traditional engagement methods. Many shared poignant accounts of economic precarity, including families making significant sacrifices to support their education abroad.

The Theatre of the Oppressed enabled participants to explore our experiences through images and improvisation, identifying key themes such as financial strain, academic pressures, and the need for culturally responsive campus initiatives.

Recommendations include creating culturally led programs, establishing safe, informal spaces for international students to share their concerns, and prioritizing accessible institutional support structures. This approach not only centers international student voices but also proposes actionable solutions for fostering equity and inclusion. A mixed-methods research approach, in collaboration with international students, is crucial for shifting prevailing paradigms and critically examining the narrative that international students are primarily recruited to Canada to alleviate their financial challenges. Overall, this paper offers insights into reframing togetherness by challenging knowledge hierarchies and advancing practical strategies to bridge global inequities in higher education.

International development scholarships for higher education, funded by donor countries such as the United States, Japan, and China as part of their educational foreign assistance initiatives, aim to enhance human capital in developing countries and foster social change. Scholarship recipients from the Global South are expected to apply the knowledge and skills acquired overseas to drive positive transformations in their home countries. However, the conceptualization and experiences of "contributing to the development of their home country" vary significantly among recipients, shaped by the unique sociopolitical and economic contexts of their home countries. Additionally, donor countries design these scholarships to align with their own strategic objectives, which may influence the outcomes.

This research addresses critical gaps in understanding these dynamics and is guided by the following research question: How do scholarship returnees and scholarship funders conceptualize "contributing to the development of their home country"? The study investigates the interplay between the perspectives of returnees and the objectives of donor countries, using Vietnam as a case study to contextualize the findings.

Critical discourse analysis will be conducted on data collected through semi-structured interviews with 40 scholarship returnees and an examination of 30 policy documents and reports from donor countries. The analysis aims to uncover how these conceptualizations are shaped, identify discrepancies between returnee experiences and donor objectives, and provide recommendations for policymakers to enhance the effectiveness of international development scholarships.

In Canada, the experiences of international students have recent widespread public attention, with elected officials, political pundits, social movement advocates, members of the public and international students themselves involved in discussions regarding international students’ “belonging” in the country. Specifically, the discourse surrounding international students’ presence in the country revolve around whether international students are causing housing shortages and contributing to rising housing unaffordability.

In response, while progressive, left, movements, including labour, migrants’ justice, and human rights groups, have mobilized to fight against far right and xenophobic discourses in digital and in public spaces, these movements are divided in terms of tactics, strategies, and normative ideologies. At issue for these progressive movements is the extent to which their movements can and should support international students, given the realities of a polycrisis that can overwhelm their organizational capacities. Even movements that see international students’ issues as tied to larger questions of global economic inequality and migrant justice do little more than issue solidarity statements, with migrant justice organizations such as the Migrants Rights Network being one of the few groups to attempt to form coalitions with international students.

As such, international students have created their own social movement organizations, mobilizing members to seek better treatment of international students and, more importantly, contextualizing international students’ demands for “landed status” as part of rich, Western states’ obligations to primarily Global South workers who were pushed out of their countries because of Western neoliberal agendas. In doing so, these organizations take inspiration from migrant domestic workers’ movements, whose slogan “good enough to work, good enough to stay,” they have taken up as part of their calls for action.

Using discourse analysis and participant observation, this paper explores progressive and international students’ movement organizing, assessing their calls for more equitable ‘development’ and their fight against neoliberalism.