Interrogating Intersectionalities, Gendering Mobilities, Racializing Transnationalism

Encouraging a conversation among scholars working with questions of transnationalism from the perspective of gender and race, this book explores the intersectionality between these two forms of oppression and their relation to transnational migration. How do sexism and racism articulate the experience of transnational migrants? What is the complex relationship between minorities and migrants in terms of gender and racial discrimination? What are the empirical and theoretical insights gained by an analysis that emphasizes the ‘intersectionality’ between gender and race? What empirical agenda can be developed out of these questions?

Bringing a transnational lens to studies of migration from an intersectional perspective, the contributors focus on how power geometries, articulated through sexisms and racisms, are experienced in relation to a migration and/or minority context. They also challenge the rather fixed notions of what constitutes an intersectional approach to the study of oppressions in social interactions. Finally, the book’s inter- and multi-disciplinary range exhibits a variety of methodological ‘takes’ on the issue of transnational intersectionalities in migration and minority context. Taken together, the volume adds theoretical, empirical and historical insight to ethnic, racial, gender and migration studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power.

Laura Oso is Senior Lecturer and coordinator of the Sociology of International Migration Research Team (ESOMI) at the Universidade da Coruna, Spain. Her research has focused on the study of migration, gender and labour markets (domestic service, sex work, ethnic entrepreneurship), migration and development, and the intergenerational social mobility strategies of migrant families.

Ramon Grosfoguel is a Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is internationally recognized for his work on the decolonization of knowledge and power, as well as for his work in international migration and the political-economy of the world-system.

Anastasia Christou is Associate Professor of Sociology at Middlesex University, London, UK. She has conducted research in the United States, UK, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, France, and Iceland. Her most recent book is Counter-diaspora: The Greek Second Generation Returns ‘Home’ (with R. King, 2014).