Multiple Europes and the Politics of Difference Within

Cross-fadings of racialisation and migratisation: the postcolonial turn in Western European gender and migration studies

“…Elsewhere for This is the accepted version of a forthcoming article that will be published in Gender, Place and Culture by Taylor and Francis: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgpc20 Accepted version downloaded from SOAS Research Online: http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/24863/ example, I discuss the migratisation of white Romanians in Western Europe through hegemonic ascriptions of backwardness and their counter-attempts to delineate themselves in racist and heterosexist ways from Roma and to define Romanianness as 'proper white Europeanness' (Tudor 2017b). However, my intervention does not deny internal hierarchisations between European nations that can be traced back to Enlightenment (see Boatcă 2013, Wolff 1994, nor does it claim, white Eastern Europeans are not discriminated against in a Western context.…”

“…In many postcolonial approaches, the historicising focus lies on the colonial epoch of the long 19th century and its perpetuation. With this, nations like Great Britain and France are centred as colonial agents (Boatcă 2013). This focus makes sense, too, for a German context whose 19th century colonialism and 20 th century genocide in Africa is, until today, widely de-memorised, despite of relentless efforts of scholars and activists in recent years to fill this void in the public and academic consciousness (i.e http://www.no-humboldt21.de/resolution/english/).…”

Dimensions of Transnationalism

“…Following Maria Todorova (2009), Manuela Botacă understands the construction of Southeastern Europe as interstage between the Orient and Occident: "Moreover, Southeastern Europe's proximity to Asia and its Ottoman cultural legacy located it halfway between East and West, thus giving it a condition of semi-Oriental, semi-civilized, semi-developed" (Boatcă 2013: 6). It becomes evident that the European separation has been established for centuries and is not rooted in the relatively short period of state socialism and the construction of the Eastern bloc (Boatcă 2006(Boatcă , 2013. Eurocentric assumptions of backwardness are transferred to Southeastern Europe -it is constructed as "Europe's incomplete Self" (Boatcă 2013) by Orientalist discourses (Said 2003), as 'epigonal Europe' (Boatcă 2013), trying to prove its proper Europeanness but constantly failing.…”

“…Racism, nationalism and fascism can be used as strategies to construct intelligible Euopeanness; "the aspiration to Europeanness" (Boatcă 2013) is legitimized through racist practices of the aspirants. In a migration context, this is realized through a phenomenon that I call transnationalism or cross-border-nationalism.…”

“…Romania gets devalued chauvinistically in many dimensions (Boatcă 2006(Boatcă , 2013Tlostanova 2012). In recent nationalist debates in Western Europe, the terms 'Romanians'…”