Denying Discrimination: Status, ‘Race’, and the Whitening of Britain's New Europeans

Abstract

There is mounting evidence to suggest that East European migrants in the UK have been victims of discrimination. Reports of pay gaps point to the possibility of structural discrimination, restrictions on employment operate as a kind of legal discrimination, and politicians and the media have constructed East European migrants as different and at times threatening. The Hungarians and Romanians we spoke with in Bristol also reported some discrimination, albeit in ways that deflected its racialised connotations. But they also denied that they were victims of discrimination. Why would the supposed victims of discrimination deny discrimination? We argue they did this to attenuate, and potentially reverse, the status degradations they suffered as disadvantaged and at times racialised labour migrants in Britain. We examine two discursive strategies they employed to negotiate this higher status. First, they claimed a higher social class status by embracing the meritocratic values of the dominant class. Second, they claimed a higher racial status by emphasising their whiteness and Europeanness. These were discursive attempts to reposition themselves more favourably in Britain's racialised status hierarchies.

The White Side of Migration: <i>Reflections on race, citizenship and belonging in Sweden</i>

“…Popular and political contemporary discourses of migration in Sweden overwhelmingly focus on immigration in terms of refugees and/or non-western migrants coming here to share 'our' economic prosperity. Similar results have been presented by scholars in the United Kingdom and the United States (Croucher 2012, Fox et al 2015. However, because of the recent economic crisis in southern European countries, the discourses of migration in Greece, Portugal and Spain can, and often do, refer to the process of out-migration, for example, by the highly skilled south European middle-class in search of a better future in northern Europe or in former colonies such as Angola or Brazil.…”

Everyday Cosmopolitanism in Representations of Europe among Young Romanians in Britain

“…With further prompting from the interviewer, Nikoleta alludes to the racialisation of Romanians in Britain through references to subtle non-verbal signs ("I don't like the face they make when I tell them I'm Romanian", "I just see their face"). It can be argued that Nikoleta's visible whiteness allows her to perform an ethicised European identity and circumvent the racialisation that is often targeted against other migrants in the UK (Fox, Morosanu and Szilassy, 2015). Her middle-class background may also add to her Europeanness.…”

Liquid migration, grounded lives: considerations about future mobility and settlement among Polish and Spanish migrants in Norway

“…Those migrants who see themselves as 'trapped' in 'liquid migration' could fall within the category describe as 'footloose migrants', whereas those who more freely opt for mobile living might remain in Friberg's second phase, that of transnational commuting (2012a), retaining a 'bi-national' focus . We acknowledge that labelling the internal movements of EU nationals as mobility and third country nationals as migration can serve to deepen the constructed difference between subaltern 'migrants' and white 'free movers', while diverting attention from the challenges, difficulties and racisms that white 'internal' EU migrants are often faced with (Bygnes 2015;Briggs and Dobre 2014;Fox, Moroşanu, and Szilassy 2015).…”