International students and everyday multiculturalism: Rethinking ‘connection’ through mundane sites of encounter

Dominant narratives of international students in the existing literature paint them as ‘missing’ or living ‘in parallel’ to their local communities, predominantly through evaluating the composition of their friendship networks. In this study, we query whether the use of a new conceptual framework can provide alternative explanations for these deficit framings. Using the lens of ‘everyday multiculturalism’, we explore instead how (international) students encounter, enact, and engage with multiculturalism in their local communities in more micro ways through banal acts of daily living. This has been developed through interviews with 41 international and home students across four cities in Germany, using a photo elicitation method and centring narrative storytelling. This study finds that micro sites of encounter, such as rubbish bins and bus rides, are symbolised by students as meaningful spaces of multicultural encounter and learning. We further reflect on how everyday multiculturalism holds a dual function as a site of experienced xenophobia and racism, as well as spaces where stereotypes are confirmed. Together this highlights the value of alternative conceptual frameworks for critiquing deficit framings of international students’ connections to multicultural societies by highlighting how they are multicultural society.