2018/07/05 by Saskia Bonjour, Sébastien Chauvin · 109 citations
Social Sciences · #Citizenship #Class (philosophy) #Diaspora, migration, transnational identity #Function (biology) #Gender studies #Identity (music) #Law #Migration and Labor Dynamics #Migration, Refugees, and Integration #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Scholarship #Sociology #Transnationalism
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/imig.12469
published in International Migration 56(4), 5-18 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2018/07/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract The introduction to this special issue traces class at the interface between migration policy and migrant strategies. Scholarship on the politics of migration and citizenship has thus far largely neglected class. In contrast, we contend that discourses on migration, integration and citizenship are inevitably classed. Assessed through seemingly heterogeneous criteria of “merit” and “performance”, class serves as an analytical connector between economic and identity rationales which intersect in all migration policies, including those regulating family and humanitarian admission. Class‐selective policy frames can function as constraints maintaining some aspiring migrants into immobility or channeling different groups of migrants into separate and unequal incorporation routes. Yet, policy frames can also serve as resources to strategize with as migrants navigate and perform gendered and classed expectations embedded into receiving‐country migration regimes. We conclude that connecting policy with migrant strategies is key to reintroducing class without naturalizing classed strategies of mobility.