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ORCID

0000-0003-0585-346X

Keywords

Decolonizing, identity, international collaboration, race, gender, Tanzania

Special Issue

Special Issue Summer 2026: Examining Race, Racism, and Racialization in the Internationalization of Higher Education from Global Perspectives

Abstract

This article explores how individuals with racial privilege can both acknowledge and start to move beyond the ways they are implicated in systemic injustices in internationalization through collaboration. The study examines how the author acted in complicity with colonial power in an international collaborative research project in English language education at a university in Tanzania. Critical ethnographic data was analyzed using positioning theory and applying the archetype of Lady Bountiful - a “nice white lady” who graciously participates in the civilizing work of colonization. This construct illuminates how the author perpetuated colonialism at the intersection of whiteness and femininity while acting as Principal Investigator, positioned as “benevolent giver,” “well-resourced,” and “foreigner who knows.” However, individuals in these roles can also resist colonizing forces such as white supremacy by engaging critical reflexivity and different conceptualizations of identity through increased attention to relationality and interdependence in both theory and practice.

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