5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

In recent years, scholarly and public engagements with immigration, in particular attitudes towards immigrants, their acceptance, and their social rights were dominated by the perspectives focusing ethnic and racial difference. While these social markers are far from being insignificant, changing patterns of migrant characteristics, migration policies, as well as increasing socio-economic anxieties within native-born populations require the adaptation of our sociological toolkits and analytical viewpoints. This session therefore invites papers that engage with issues such as the ‘global race for talents’, ‘welfare chauvinism’, and ‘immigrant justice’ from the perspective of social class. It challenges presenters to probe accepted wisdom that attributes smooth immigration and integration pathways to allegedly ‘skilled’ migrants and refugees in receiving societies where some fractions of the native-born population welcome them as heroes and saviors while others view them as cultural and economic competitors. Papers might address the following questions: How do xenophobia and aporophobia (Cortina 1995) intersect producing new mechanisms of exclusion of immigrants? How is the provision of social rights to immigrants shaped by their perceived social class belonging and productivity? Do receiving-country middle-class norms strengthen the systemic and structural exclusion of certain categories of immigrants? How do intersections of racism and classism amplify social inequalities in immigrant-receiving countries? Do ‘successful’ immigrants frighten or appease native-born populations? How can social class perspectives enrich our thinking about justice and injustice in general, and in relation to the complex relationships between migrant and native-born populations in particular?