‘Racism’, intersectionality and migration studies: framing some theoretical reflections

Abstract

The concept of ‘racism’ has faced many difficulties in migration studies. Depending on definitions, islamophobia is a form either of religious discrimination or of racism. The same is true in contemporary debates in Europe about xenophobia against immigrants from the Global South. This article provides an alternative way of thinking about racism and its relationship with questions of intersectionality and discusses the relationship of these issues to migration theory. In the first part, we discuss intersectionality in relation to Fanon’s definition of racism. Then, we establish a dialogue between the work of de Sousa Santos and Fanon that could enrich our understanding of intersectionality in the framework of modernity and the capitalist/imperial/patriarchal/racial colonial world-system. Finally, we analyse this discussion’s implications for migration theory, highlighting how migration studies tend to reproduce a northern-centric social science view of the world that comes from the experience of others in the zone of being.

Keywords:

• racism
• islamophobia
• gender
• xenophobia
• migration
• intersectionality

Acknowledgements

This special issue was made possible thanks to generous financial support from research projects of Spain’s Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad: ‘The impact of Migration on Development, Gender and Transnationalism’ (SEJ2007/6379); ‘Gender, Transnationalism and Inter-Generational Strategies for Social Mobility’ (FEM2011-26210, FEM20/1002/E) and complementary funding (SEJ2007-30782-E, FEM2010-10702-E), and by the 2011 call for consolidating and structuring competitive research units (ref. CN2011/03, Xunta de Galicia), co-financed with FEDER which financed the English editing of the texts by Sharon Krummel, to whom we are grateful.

This funding also enabled us to organise ‘Transnational Migration in Western Europe Today: The Gender and Racial Dimensions’, an international workshop held at the University of A Coruña, on 2 and 3 June 2011 where an earlier version of several papers included in this special issue was presented. We appreciate the careful and extensive reading of the papers along with all the constructive comments received from reviewers. Finally, we are very grateful to the Editor of the journal, Professor Claire Alexander, and the editorial office for their continued support throughout the submission and review process.

Notes

1. Yet this does not negate Polish agency as revealed in Christou's research with Polish migrants in Greece: see Christou (2008).

2. Vast literature has been produced in the last two decades on transnational communities, transnational spaces and in general the phenomenon of transnationalism from above and below. For an extensive review and re-theorisation refer to King and Christou (2010) and King and Christou (2011).

3. We naturally acknowledge that there are a few exceptions to this, yet as a core theoretical tradition migration studies are not pre-occupied with a critical race theory framework unless the specific author has an anti-racist/activist/critical agenda.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ramon Grosfoguel

RAMON GROSFOGUEL is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley

Laura Oso

LAURA OSO is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Sociology at the Universidade da Coruña, Spain

Anastasia Christou

ANASTASIA CHRISTOU is Associate Professor of Sociology at Middlesex University, London