This ethnographic study examines the research experiences of international graduate students (IGS) from the Global South who enroll in an Earth Science Department at a Southwest university. I draw on Fricker's (2007) epistemic injustice, which centers on power and the ethics of knowing, to provide a framework for identifying how systemic prejudice from a hearer or a collective unduly dismisses knowers and knowledge. As a Mexican IGS, I recruited IGS from the Global South using snowball sampling. Four Global South IGS participated while enrolled in Earth Science programs at a Southwest university. I collected data through semi-structured interviews, lasting 45-60 minutes, and conducted via Zoom. I manually transcribed these interviews verbatim and analyzed them using open and focused coding (Saldaña, 2016) in MAXQDA.

Findings link IGS's lived experiences to their research engagement in the host country. Epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007) shows how students' knowledge is threatened, while coloniality (Maldonado-Torres, 2007) highlights how students devalue experiences from their home country. This study thus recommends recognizing students' experiences to foster epistemically diverse environments.

IGS research experiences in the US are marked by prior experiences that taught resourcefulness, problem-solving, and resilience. However, their previous context was rooted in colonial perspectives that undermined their knowledge. US universities and laboratories should support and foster these researchers' epistemic resources. This study offers three key recommendations for geoscience education, based on the experiences of Global South international students: (1) implement mentor and instructor routines that elicit and name students' epistemic resources; (2) use identity-affirming feedback and ensure inclusive participation structures in labs; and (3) adopt strategies that value multiple solution pathways.