Racialized Geopolitics and Disrupted Belonging: Students’ Emotional Entanglements After a Campus Closure Announcement

This study explores the emotional entanglements and lived experiences of students at an English-medium international branch campus in the Middle East following the announcement of its closure. Using an interpretive phenomenological approach, it examines how students’ emotions are deeply intertwined with identity and racialized geopolitics in shaping their experiences of transnational institutional belonging. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 Asian and Arab students, whose non-citizen status made them particularly vulnerable to the closure's consequences. A thematic analysis revealed three overarching themes: the disruption of institutional identity and belonging, racialized geopolitical frustrations, and increased solidarity among peers. The closure announcement not only created uncertainty around students’ academic trajectories but also intensified feelings of othering and discrimination tied to broader racialized, geopolitical dynamics. However, the shared experience of institutional upheaval also cultivated a sense of camaraderie as students bonded over their shared emotions and, for some, reaffirmed their identities within the campus. This study contributes to the growing body of research on emotions enmeshed with identity, power, and space. It illustrates how institutional decisions in English-medium and transnational higher education contexts can disrupt academic trajectories, reshape personal and collective identities, and impact students’ sense of belonging and well-being.