In ‘Travelling While Black’ Nyabola (2020) recounts how she navigates the global travel industry as a Black African woman, highlighting the system’s hostility, its inherent whiteness and persistent Eurocentrism. In a similar vein, Johny Pitts (2019) refers to himself as the ‘rarest of creatures: a Black backpacker’, as he embarks on his journey across Europe. When applied in a University context, their work poses the question of how Black British and British Asian students experience their year abroad (YA)? How do these students navigate the duality of institutional whiteness inherent in the travel industry and the UK University complex?

Existing studies from the US have shown that race can impact intercultural interaction, cultural competence and language acquisition during the YA (Llanes, 2011; Quan, 2018) Additionally, student safety and microaggressions were raised as important issues that students faced (Goldoni, 2017). Building on this scholarship, this paper analyses the YA/overseas placement experiences of 7 students who identified as Black British (4), Biracial (1), British Asian (2), who attended UK Universities (4). Peer interviews conducted by Keji Kamoju explored a) University support prior to/during the YA; b) student concerns around race & other identity characteristics; c) their experiences (positive/less positive) during the YA and d) advice for future students undertaking their YA.

This paper has two objectives: 1) report findings around the identified themes; and 2) highlight the policy outcomes that have emerged from the project to support future students.

1. Findings: 1. Institutional whiteness within University settings rendered race invisible in YA preparations across 4 UK Universities; 2. Students therefore: a) undertook self-directed study prior to travel to explore: safety of destination & local diaspora through vlogs, blogs, Youtube; b) felt unsupported; c) were unlikely to report racial incidents whilst abroad due to lack of institutional understanding; 3. Race impacted on YA destinations – cities favoured over rural locations, especially in Europe; and 4. Intersectionality was key in perceptions of inclusion/exclusion in YA settings – around race and ethnicity, gender, religion and class, eg British identity and diasporic communities were considered important for integration & language acquisition during YA.

2. Policy outcomes: a) awareness raising among languages/placement staff of project findings; b) creation of resources to support staff & students - podcast, blog, Q & A for students, policy brief for staff; c) create bounded space for students to discuss race and YA across final and 1^st/2^nd year cohorts; d) safety plans.

Academic mobility has progressively increased since the 1990s, with the internationalization of higher education and knowledge production. At the same time, a growing number of scholars from non-EU countries and the Global South are encountering increasing visa obstacles. This challenge is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of anti-migrant, far-right populism in Europe and hinders their ability to attend conferences and pursue job opportunities in European countries. Academics are habitually coded and categorized throughout their mobility experiences based on their race, nationality, ethnicity or gender, deeply impacting their professional and material realities. Scholars holding ‘high-value’ passports of the Global North countries are often uninformed about or unconcerned with the emotional, financial, and physical challenges scholars with ‘lower-ranking’ passports face. Academic immobility caused by discriminatory visa policies, registration costs, and geographical distance generates personal and professional hardships and engenders new epistemic hierarchies in European Studies and unequal power relations between geo-epistemologies studying Europe. Turkish citizens, including those studying European studies, are experiencing an increasing number of visa rejections from Western countries, as highlighted by various news articles, opinion pieces, and discussions on social media. Visa denials of Turkish scholars thus emerge as an appealing case to study the nexus between academic (im)mobility and how Europe is studied outside of the EU. Drawing insights from the scholarship on epistemic injustice, birthright lottery, and decentering knowledge, along with the findings from the 25 semi-structured interviews with Turkish scholars, this paper investigates the impact of academic immobility on knowledge production on Europe and the sustenance of epistemic hierarchies. In doing so, we also aim to understand better the lived experiences of scholars from disadvantaged backgrounds who have been exposed to such hierarchies and how they have perceived and navigated them.

Drawing on extensive empirical work and using legal geography to justify our choice of location, we examine the experiences of non-white Portuguese citizens from both Portugal and those with Portuguese citizenship from former Portuguese colonies, together with their family members, living in the UK, specifically in Great Yarmouth and Lincoln city in the East of England. To date this group have largely been absent from the literature on EU free movement. Our paper therefore offers insights into the geographical reach of EU citizenship beyond the borders of the EU- particularly in the context of lusophone Africa and East Timor. Our paper also examines the everyday legal problems experienced by minoritised ethnic EU citizens: issues related to immigration status, experiences of discrimination and racism, as well as difficulties in accessing support from public bodies such as the NHS and local authorities. By focusing on the particular problems experienced by this group, not only does this identify the particular issues they are facing but it also highlights the extent to which public authorities are – or are not - delivering on their obligations under the public sector equality duty which is intended to ensure better outcomes for these marginalised groups in the future.