Anne Campbell is an independent scholar and consultant. She was formerly Associate Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, California and U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Kosovo with the Ministry of Education. She has also served as an international scholarship program manager at the Open Society Foundations in New York and as a lead administrator at Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.
An exploration of LGBTQIA+ international students who pursue U.S. higher education—and their challenges following graduation.
Do LGBTQIA+ international students enroll in US colleges and universities to escape discrimination at home? And is the United States what they hoped it would be? In Finding Freedom?, Anne Campbell examines the experiences of 12 queer international students from seven countries with anti-LGBTQIA+ laws.
Using rich qualitative data and a social justice lens, the book uncovers queer international students’ motivations for studying abroad, their evolving identities and search for community while in the United States, and the dilemmas they face in “finding home” after graduation. For many of the 180,000–350,000 queer international students currently in the United States, the search for freedom is both complex and relentless, and more can and should be done to support them.
The book is important reading for scholars and students of higher education, international education, and queer studies—as well as for international students themselves and for those who teach them, design policy for them, and study alongside them.
“A deeply humane book that brings queer international students to the center of debates about mobility, identity, freedom, and higher education, while illuminating the promises and contradictions of studying abroad.”
—Maia Chankseliani, Professor of Comparative and International Education, University of Oxford; author of What Happened to the Soviet University? and Seeing Otherwise
“Finding Freedom? expertly complicates our understanding of educational opportunities and intersectional oppressions within a global context. This volume fills a critical gap in higher education scholarship.”
—Chrystal A. George Mwangi, Professor of Higher Education, George Mason University; author of Hidden in Blackness and (Re)Framing College Access by and with Communities of Color
“A timely and important contribution, Campbell centers the voices of queer international students while offering critical insights that will challenge, inform, and inspire scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.”
—Andrew Herridge, Assistant Professor of Educational Research and Administration, University of Southern Mississippi; coeditor of Perspectives on Transforming Higher Education and the LGBTQIA Student Experience
“Campbell's book shines a vital light on how queer international students' intersectional identities and experiences cannot be wholly divorced from contextual factors of their home country or the United States.”
—Max Crumley-Effinger, Assistant Director, International Student Affairs, Emerson College