Navigating microaggressions in the workplace: experiences of Chinese international academics in England

Microaggressions are pervasive within historically white British higher education, but there is little research on Chinese international academics’ experiences and how they navigate microaggressions in their workplace. Drawing on interviews with 41 Chinese academics from four universities in England, this research reveals that 35 participants (85%) experienced or witnessed microaggressions which created a hostile academic environment that undermined their professional standing and cultural identity. The verbal, behavioural, and environmental microaggressions operate through institutional structures that concentrate Chinese academics in junior positions with heavy workloads and deny them voice, credibility, and advancement opportunities. The research participants developed four main response strategies (non-confrontation, active resistance, strategic visibility, and exit planning) to navigate microaggressions, revealing sophisticated negotiations between cultural values, pragmatic assessments of their position, and survival needs. The complex patterns of microaggressions illuminated by this study contribute to better understanding of racial microaggressions in academic settings. The study extends Bourdieu’s capital framework by revealing how racialization can create complete blockages to capital conversion, not merely inefficient conversion. It also provides important insights for Critical Race Theory, particularly regarding how racism operates distinctively for Chinese international academics who are hypervisible as foreign and different, yet invisible in decision-making and senior leadership in the English universities.