XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 13-19, 2014)

July 13 - 19, 2014

110

Migration, Racialization and Authochtonous Far-Right Movements

RC05 Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations (host committee)

Language: English

This session addresses the relationship between migration and racialization and how autochthonous far-right movements are increasingly shaping public debate about this. Increasing mobility, alongside more and more strenuous border controls, the stratification of mobility, residence and social rights of migrants are factors leading to the racialization of the figure of the “migrant” and those who are constructed as “not belonging”. Those migrants who are seen to especially embody undesirable forms of mobility or as threatening those “who belong”: refugees, undocumented migrants and “terrorists” are especially targeted. Economic and legal factors as well as media and cultural representations contribute to the specific forms of racialized subordination of these “undesirable migrants”. Yet, the discourse on uncontrolled, undesirable migration also often revives racist imaginations and mobilizes these against the settled ethnic minority populations, even where these may hold formal citizenship. Migration has a potential of both disrupting and reinforcing existing dynamics of racialization in particular states and societies. These issues are experienced differentially in different parts of the world, where notions of legitimate belonging are justified with recourse to a variety of themes, such as autochthonic belonging, long-term settlement, culture, language, “race”, religion etc. We encourage papers that take account of this diversity of experiences while seeking to articulate wider theoretical insights into the relationship between racialization, migration and the rise of the autochthonous far-right. Papers might address but are not limited to the following questions: How does the arrival of new migrants from the same geography influence the racialization of settled ethnic minorities from the same group? How does the arrival of migrants from other parts of the world, who might be differentially racialized, influence the positioning of settled ethnic minorities? How do transnational circuits of mobility and migration contribute to racialized imaginations and practices both in the “new” countries and in the “homeland”? How are themes and experience of migration racialized to justify exclusionary and racist notions of legitimate belonging, both by mainstream and autochthonous far-right movements? How far do gender, sexuality and other social divisions cross-cut these discourses of legitimate mobility and belonging? For example, is this done through justifying Othering and exclusion on the basis that minorities and migrants supposedly do not respect women`s and gay rights? Or are gender and sexual identities used as bases of solidarity that are opposed to racialized exclusions?