Higher Education holds a significant role in many countries, including European ones – both for the individuals who access their institutions and for society writ large. Yet access to and full participation in Higher Education Institutions are restricted through policies, practices, and norms. Worldwide, refugee access to higher education is 9% (UNESCO, 2025). In Australia, where our study is based, the numbers reflect the global trends, though recent changes in policy and practice have seen a slight increase in numbers (Baak et al. 2025). 

Even with access increasing, there remain significant questions as to the quality of the university experience of refugee students once they are admitted. Full participation in universities requires more than access. It requires epistemic justice – the capacity for students to access and contribute to knowledge and see their ways of knowing reflected and valued (Fricker, 2007). An important way to understand epistemic (in)justice is through the lived experience of refugee and asylum-seeking students themselves. 

This paper draws on an Australian longitudinal study designed to follow the typical student journey from initial entry to completion of a bachelor’s programme. The study began in 2018, with 22 first-year students from asylum-seeking backgrounds in seven Australian tertiary institutions. The international research team includes two researchers based in Australia, one in Canada, one in the UK and two in Finland.  We collected data annually using semi-structured qualitative interviews at three points in the students’ higher education journey. First interviews provided an understanding of the students’ experiences of getting into university, while the second-wave interviews explored the students’ experiences in the middle of their Bachelor programme. The third-wave interviews allowed students to reflect on the experience near the completion of their studies. Wave four interviews checked in with students wherever they were – continuing education, in employment, or otherwise – and continued the reflection on their university years and their experiences transitioning out of university. 

Through listening to the lived experiences of the participants in our study, the exclusionary system within which they were operating becomes quite clear. Government and institutional policies and practices often failed to recognise the unique needs of this distinct group. Refugee and asylum-seeking students: were classified as international students; fell through the institutional cracks in terms of material and economic services; were vulnerable to visa or status changes; were restricted in their mobility; and sometimes felt their position too precarious to advocate for themselves. 

In this paper, we shift from examining these tangible forms of exclusion to exploring how refugee and asylum-seeking students in our study experienced exclusion, and at times inclusion, as holders of knowledge. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice, we pose the research questions: How were these students disadvantaged by unjust assumptions about their capacity as knowers? And how did they face further challenges in making sense of their social experiences within Australian universities? 

Fricker originally identified two primary forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice arises when prejudice against a person impacts on how their word is received, i.e., whether others believe what someone says and acknowledge what they know. In other words, testimonial injustice means that credibility is unfairly diminished because of who the speaker is. Hermeneutical injustice, in turn, means that people have a gap in their collective interpretive resources that prevents someone from making sense of their own social experience. It is about the absence of language or shared understanding that would make it possible to communicate an experienced injustice, or an experience in general. Although we found evidence of both forms of epistemic injustice being experienced by our participants, hermeneutical injustice was most prominent.

Data consists of 51 qualitative semi-structured interviews with 22 participants across various time points in their studies over 5 years. We zoom in on 10 interviews that took place with three participants over the course of five years. Given the breadth of data gathered in this study, we chose to focus on a smaller case study sample in this paper to offer a greater depth in our analysis and presentation of findings. Members of the research team met on several occasions to discuss the content of interviews across the whole data set and subsequently reached a consensus on the chosen participants to focus on in this paper. Mohammed, Sharlim, and Yasmin (all pseudonyms) were chosen as illustrative examples of participants’ varying capacity as ‘knowers’ within their education experiences. We do not wish to suggest that the experiences of Mohammed, Sharlim, and Yasmin are a representative sample of asylum-seeking students’ experiences in Higher Education – as this would imply a false homogeneity of student experience across this diverse cohort. Yet, these three chosen cases do highlight extreme instances of precarity. Despite the span of this study occurring over five years, Mohammed, Sharlim, and Yasmin all remained on temporary protection visas throughout the entirety of their studies. As we have previously argued, focusing an analysis with this cohort on the extreme end of precarity allows for clarification on “the deeper causes behind a problem and its consequences” (Kuakko et al., 2023). In this instance, the (in)justices experienced by participants as ‘knowers’ within their higher education. Interview transcripts were analysed by two members of the research team who frequently met throughout the analysis phase. In the analysis, the theoretical framework of epistemic (in)justice served as a conceptual point of departure. Transcripts were first read in depth to garner impressions of the overall narratives of students’ experiences as they pertain to epistemic (in)justice. Following this, transcripts were coded to identify any basic codes relevant to the theoretical framework. These basic codes were then clustered into a series of sorting themes. Finally, these sorting themes were critically discussed between the two members of the team responsible for the analysis to identify any overarching global themes. These global themes will frame our presentation of findings in this paper and their implications.

Testimonial injustice appeared at different stages of the three participants’ higher education experience - for example, when participants received student support geared toward international students despite their insistence that they had a different status - discrediting their own unique voices as students of refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds. Hermeneutical injustice was even more common, pointing to an absence in collective interpretative resources and an absence in arenas where those voices will be heard. Students sometimes gave up attempting to advocate for themselves and instead tried to fit the ‘typical’ student profile. Following these three participants through -and beyond- their higher education experience revealed how some students slowly developed the needed language and resources to ensure their voices and knowledge were heard and valued over the course of their studies. Our findings showed that a major contributing factor to this difference was a designated support worker in the institutions that helped to create spaces of hermeneutical acceptance. The workers acted as intermediaries while students developed the necessary resources to communicate their needs in ways that were understood and valued. European institutions of higher education have different ways of working with asylum seeking. Access and participation may be seemingly less restricted, due to different fee- and visa structures, but invisible barriers might nevertheless exist. Based on the participants’ experiences, we finish with actionable recommendations for leaders and practitioners in higher education institutions, focused on creating more just policies and practices for all students.They are relevant for European institutions struggling to build opportunities that are equal not only in principle but also in practice.

Baak, M., Baker, S., Hartley, L., Burke, R., Phipps, A., Kindon, S., Dunwoodie, K., Naidoo, L., Ziersch, A. (2025). Decolonising solidarity in higher education: navigating barriers and enablers in advocacy with people from displaced backgrounds. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2025. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice : power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press. UNESCO (2025). Refugee qualifications recognition: We need urgent reforms. International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. https://www.iesalc.unesco.org/en/articles/refugee-qualifications-recognition-we-need-urgent-reforms