Dissertation Defense Announcement Ph.D. in Higher Education Program: Costin Thampikutty “Ethnoreligious Sense of Belonging as a Negotiation: A Critical Narrative Inquiry of Christian Indian American college students’ Involvement in South Asian Christian Student Organizations”

As the demographics of evangelical Christian Student Organizations (CSOs) including InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Cru have shifted in the past decades (Schmalzbauer, 2007; Schmalzbauer & Mahoney, 2018), ethnic-specific CSO chapters have emerged as unique, invaluable spaces for students of color to intertwine faith and ethnicity (Kim & Murdock, 2023). However, limited research has focused on the experiences of Christian Indian American students’ involvement experiences in South Asian CSOs such as South Asian InterVarsity and Design Movement (Samuel, 2017). This is particularly concerning as research has highlighted the damaging impact of the model minority myth on Indian Americans, leading to perceptions of relative success and equity (Harpalani, 2022; Museus & Kiang, 2009). Thus, this qualitative study investigates the influence of Christian Indian American students’ South Asian CSO involvement experiences on their sense of belonging to reveal motivations, outcomes, and negotiations in belonging.

Driven by a critical narrative inquiry approach (Pino Gavidia & Adu, 2022) and informed by a critical constructivist epistemology (Perez, 2019), this study utilized Critical Campus Ecology (Noble, 2023) as a theoretical framework to explore how contextual layers across students’ experiences shaped their sense of belonging. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews with 12 Christian Indian American South Asian CSO members and illustrated how belonging served as both a motivation for South Asian CSO involvement and represented a continually negotiated process. Findings reveal five central themes in relation to South Asian CSO involvement: (a) ethnoreligious belonging as a motivation; (b) ethnoreligious identity redefinition as an outcome; (c) mattering as a product of relational depth; (d) the complexities of student leadership in relation to belonging; and (e) political neutrality as a negotiation in belonging.

This study extends the Critical Campus Ecology model (Noble, 2023) by emphasizing the role of temporality and reintroducing the chronosystem as a salient influence on belonging. Additionally, this study provides empirical evidence to support understandings of the non-linear relationship between belonging and involvement (Strayhorn, 2018). Findings contribute to scholarship on Indian American college students, ethnic-specific Christian student organizations and ethnoreligous student communities, and offer implications for student affairs leaders, parachurch organization advisors, and higher education scholars in terms of practice, policy, and further research.

Keywords: South Asian Christian student organizations, Indian American college students, sense of belonging, ethnoreligious identity, critical campus ecology, parachurch organizations