“We Have to Survive, First”: Speculative Ethnographies of Chinese Student Experience During COVID-19

Abstract

Our speculative ethnography of Chinese student experience in the United States during COVID-19 weds the tradition of speculative fiction (exemplified by the likes of Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler) and digital autoethnography. The study is two-pronged: First, we articulate/map the methodological merits of speculative and digital autoethnography as particularly conducive to the crisis context of COVID-19 and its accompanying social isolation; second, we deploy said methodology within a population of nine Chinese students “trapped” in the United States during the COVID-19 period.

Autoethnographically Interrogating School-Based Anti-“Asian” Racism in Post(?)-Pandemic Times: An AsianCrit-Informed Composite Palimpsest

“…2. Convergences that were simultaneously illuminated and amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a growing repository of (counter)stories from a range of North American stakeholders in the higher education teaching (Endo, 2021a(Endo, , 2021b and learning space (Dai & Arnberg, 2022;Hau Lam et al, 2022), as well as the Australian context in schools (Teo, 2023a(Teo, , 2023b and broader societal settings (Asian Australian Alliance et al, 2020;Monzon & Bapuji, 2020).…”

“… 2. Convergences that were simultaneously illuminated and amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a growing repository of (counter)stories from a range of North American stakeholders in the higher education teaching (Endo, 2021a, 2021b) and learning space (Dai & Arnberg, 2022; Hau Lam et al, 2022), as well as the Australian context in schools (Teo, 2023a, 2023b) and broader societal settings (Asian Australian Alliance et al, 2020; Monzon & Bapuji, 2020). Consequently, this paper seeks to extend the transnational conversation on Anti-“Asian” racism by chronicling “Asian” Australian teachers’ personal and professional race-making practices in the face of racism before and during COVID-19. …”

“…[where] reflexivity is to be understood as an expression of the subjective experience of doing research, in which the involvement of the researcher in the research process, manifested by the dynamics of interaction and relationship between the research and the researched, gains decisive meaning in and for the interpretation”. (Dai & Arnberg, 2022, p. 736) In other words, individual narratives are unified with my own reflexive understandings which “affords the reader the ability to explore the ‘felt-sense’ of the experiences conveyed” in this paper (Wertz et al, 2011, p. 8).…”

“…[where] reflexivity is to be understood as an expression of the subjective experience of doing research, in which the involvement of the researcher in the research process, manifested by the dynamics of interaction and relationship between the research and the researched, gains decisive meaning in and for the interpretation”. (Dai & Arnberg, 2022, p. 736)…”