Elective affinities between racism and immigrant integration policies: a dialogue between two research studies carried out across the European Union and Spain
Metadata
Show full item recordDate
2022Referencia bibliográfica
Sebastiani, Luca; Martín-Godoy, Paula (2022). “Elective affinities between racism and immigrant integration policies: a dialogue between two research studies carried out across the European Union and Spain”. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 29(5): 594-613. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2020.1831780 (first published online: 2020).
Abstract
In this paper, we problematise the relationship between racism and immigrant integration
policies. First, we approach racism from its institutional, governmental and trans-scalar
functioning logic. Then, drawing on the fieldwork materials of our respective investigations carried out at the EU level and in Spain), we argue the existence of an ‘elective affinity’
between racism and integration, despite the apparently inclusive and proactive rethoric
entailed by integration policies. With this aim, we focus on three specific issues: (1) the
construction of the migrants (and the racialised Others) as an object of
intervention/knowledge, (2) the downplaying of racism, reduced to an individual pathology
which is considered to be incompatible with Western democracy and free market, (3) the
reproduction of epistemic racism through the discourse on European (and national) values. By
discussing the power/knowledge relations fostered by the hegemonic problematisation of
integration, we propose to approach it as a ‘suspicious category.