Black Campus Life: The Worlds Black Students Make at a Historically White Institution. By Tichavakunda, Antar A., Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021. 278 pp. $28.95. ISBN: 978‐1‐43‐848592‐8

Black Campus Life: The Worlds Black Students Make at a Historically White Institution is a work by A. Tichavakunda that successfully portrays experiences of racism from a different perspective. It is a deeply ethnographic and theoretical work that presents the lives of black students at West Side University (pseudonym) to the world. Racism does not only occur in overt acts of discrimination, but arises from the way students deal with campus culture by people who belong to different racial groups. Tichavakunda captures how they create community, togetherness, and meaning in a racist space. The book has four main sections: the Black community on campus, National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the engineering faculty community in general, and the mainstream community at WSU. Each section consists of one descriptive chapter and one student character who presents different experiences even within the same campus. At the beginning of the book, Tichavakunda positions himself as a black student conducting research using a “social realism” approach. This approach refers to a perspective that combines his personal life experiences with academic research to critically examine the reality of black student life. This position shaped his social realist perspective, allowing him to pay attention to the real experiences of black students while acknowledging the structural forces that shaped them. He recognizes that racism is an unavoidable presence in American campus life. With 113 interviews and 180 h of observation conducted at West Side University (WSU), this book presents an in-depth ethnographic portrait of how black students create semi-autonomous spaces as places to belong and support each other within an institutionally exclusive campus environment. These communities are formed out of necessity and as a form of resistance, as students confront race-based alienation through collective practices such as mutual care and reliance on independence. Chapter 2 provides an archival examination of the campus magazine showing how the engineering profession is racialized and gendered as the property of white or East Asian men and encourages sexism towards women. Although the college tries to present itself as an inclusive institution, black students still feel marginalized, and coverage in West Side Magazine illustrates this exclusion through racist and sexist representations. Tichavakunda use Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Bourdieu's concept of habitus to explain how racial and gender discourses reinforce each other in determining who is considered “entitled” to be in the engineering world overage in The West Side magazine also illustrates sexist jokes against women. However, although structurally racist cultures are created externally, the interests of the community internally also create tensions. Chapters 3–4 describe the complexity of the BSU (Black Student Union) community. Interviewee Johnson described how the community, which ideally represents all black students, does not define him. His experiences and background do not fit the dominant image that BSU has built, which is perceived to represent others. However, Johnson looks for other spaces that he feels are suitable, not sticking to one community. Similarly, the figure of Martin in Chapter 11, who experienced internal “bullying” during his childhood in a Black environment, shows that prior trauma may lead some Black students not to feel safe and integrated. Instead, he feels more comfortable joining the white community. On the other hand, Chapters 5–6, which focus on NSBE, describe a campus culture that is more responsive to the needs of black engineering students. However, inequality persists, as members still face racial stereotypes, limited institutional support, and are not automatically considered worthy or “entitled” to be in engineering majors. Therefore, they must constantly demonstrate competence, hard work, and achievement so that others do not doubt their existence. Jasmine's story explains how she is expected to endure microaggressions without complaint, to serve as a representative figure for other black women, and to navigate the challenges of being a Black female student in a predominantly white and male dominated academic environment. Chapters 7 to 9 show that diversity is more symbolic than substantive. We are told that minority students often feel isolated in working together, not only when working with white peers but sometimes even with other students of color due to their experiences of racism and discrimination. This makes them wary of each other and hinders what should be productive collaboration. Nina's story in chapter 9 shows how black women are visually represented by the institution, but excluded from important decision-making structures. Nina was also active in the organization but still had difficulty forming a study group until her third year. However, she showed bargaining power such as resilience not to blame racism directly, but to look for alternatives. Chapter 10 critically examines how mainstream campus spaces, though nominally open to all students, remain racially exclusive in practice. While Black students are formally permitted to participate in the broader campus environment, they often experience feelings of alienation and marginalization. The chapter highlights how Black students must constantly negotiate everyday forms of racism, both subtle and overt, as they attempt to access spaces that are implicitly structured around whiteness. Finally, Chapter 12 of the book offers a sociological perspective from a series of ethnographic field notes. The author calls it the concept of “sociology blues”, a phenomenological approach that reveals how Black students reinterpret campus symbols, no longer seeing them as representations of inclusivity but as things that must be faced with survival strategies. This book offers significant advantages with an ethnographic approach that allows readers to understand in detail the racist incidents that occur on campus and how to survive them. The use of theory is very relevant, especially for readers who are unfamiliar with the racist life at college. However, there are important shortcomings in this book. First, the experiences of Black students could have been portrayed in greater depth. Although characters such as Jasmine and Nina are included, systematic analysis in terms of gender and intersectionality is still quite limited. It is important to highlight that women's experiences of racism often intersect with gender expectations, social affiliation, and affective burden in organizations. Secondly, social class does not appear straightforwardly in narratives about school origin or the way students speak. At the beginning of Chapter 1, the author mentioned Bourdieu's framework, which can be used as a tool to explore how cultural, economic, and symbolic capital influence how the social world of students is formed. WSU is presented as an institution that emphasizes diversity and equality in its official discourse. Moreover, the presence of NSBE at WSU provides a unique organizational platform for Black engineering students, which may not exist at other universities. For readers outside America, this book provides a critical perspective. Black Campus Life is a valuable lesson in the dangers of mimicking institutional forms without knowing the events that influenced them. As noted by Jonathan Yong Tienxhi regarding Southeast Asia (2021), Critical Race Theory faces challenges when applied in other contexts due to the specific racial differences informing it. The book Black Campus Life is a remarkable contribution to the anthropology of education and race studies. This book shows that universities are not just academic spaces but social stages full of symbolic tensions. For anyone who feels there is inequality in academic spaces that present themselves as institutions of inclusion, this book is here to offer recognition and hope that a world of inclusion is possible.