The Racialization of the New European Migration to the UK

Abstract

The purpose of our article is to examine how current East European migration to the UK has been racialized in immigration policy and tabloid journalism. The state’s immigration policy, we argue, exhibits features of institutionalized racism that implicitly invokes shared whiteness as a basis of racialized inclusion. The tabloids, in contrast, tend toward cultural racism in their coverage of these migrations by explicitly invoking cultural difference as a basis of racialized exclusion. Our analysis focuses on two cohorts of migrants: Hungarians, representing the larger 2004 entrants, and Romanians, representing the smaller 2007 entrants. The processes of racialization we examine in this article reveal degrees of whiteness that give ‘race’ continued currency as an idiom for making sense of these migrations and the migrants that people them.

Differentiated embedding: Polish migrants in London negotiating belonging over time

“…While my focus here is largely on social networks, I am cognisant of the importance of socio-economic structures within specific territorial contexts as highlighted throughout this paper. In the context of intra-EU migration, it is interesting to consider how opportunity structures may be racialised in specific ways (Garner 2006) and how nominal whiteness can become refracted in different ways within particular contexts (Fox, Moroşanu, and Szilassy 2012). However, that discussion is beyond the scope of this particular paper.…”

Shooting for Lithuania: Migration, National Identity and Men’s Basketball in the East of England

“…For groups such as British Asians and migrants from beyond Europe, socially produced and contested notions of race and ethnicity often have a phenotypical or biological dimension that can nevertheless can be called into question. For example, 'white' groups of migrants in the Western European context have frequently been subject to cultural 'racialization processes' leading to their marginalization (Fox et al, 2012). Racialization is invoked when 'racial' categories enter discursive and institutional practices in a manner which contours social relations (Fox et al, 2012;Garner, 2006).…”

“…For example, 'white' groups of migrants in the Western European context have frequently been subject to cultural 'racialization processes' leading to their marginalization (Fox et al, 2012). Racialization is invoked when 'racial' categories enter discursive and institutional practices in a manner which contours social relations (Fox et al, 2012;Garner, 2006). Clearly, rather than being based upon only 'visible' markers of 'race,' the processes behind the production, reproduction and resistance of 'racial' or ethnic categories are grounded in power relationships that change over time, and that reflect more general sets of geopolitical, economic and cultural interdependencies at both the global and local level (Dunning, 1999;Fox et al, 2012).…”

“…Racialization is invoked when 'racial' categories enter discursive and institutional practices in a manner which contours social relations (Fox et al, 2012;Garner, 2006). Clearly, rather than being based upon only 'visible' markers of 'race,' the processes behind the production, reproduction and resistance of 'racial' or ethnic categories are grounded in power relationships that change over time, and that reflect more general sets of geopolitical, economic and cultural interdependencies at both the global and local level (Dunning, 1999;Fox et al, 2012). Consequently, 'racialization' does not require phenotypical or biological difference, but can also make use of sociocultural and economic differences.…”

Automatic transmission: ethnicity, racialization and the car

“…Fox et al (2012) conceptualise Eastern European migration into the UK as a racialized problematic framed around various dimensions including criminality and cultural deficiency.…”