Culture as politics in contemporary migration contexts: the in/visibilization of power relations. Issue 3 (17th February 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dahinden, Janine; Korteweg, Anna C.
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 46:Issue 3(2023)
• Page Start: 420
• Page End: 449
• Publication Date: 2023-02-17
• Subjects: Uses of culture -- migranticization -- racialization -- nativism -- discursive repertoires -- invisibilization; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2022.2121171
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In the 1990s, an essentialist, bounded understanding of culture delimiting (ethno-national) groups based on allegedly discrete sets of natural characteristics came to structure politics in North Atlantic migration contexts, justifying migrant exclusion or celebrating inclusion. Yet, how this idea of "culture-as-defining-attribute" works among people situated in everyday life remains understudied. We develop an analytical framework centred on discursive repertoires, sources of relational meaning-production, anchored in historical contexts, and embedded in power. Analyzing 125 essays written by Toronto and Neuchâtel undergraduate students, we demonstrate that using culture-as-defining-attribute results in an in/visibilization of power relations. Toronto students hypervisibilize a positively inflected conviviality across multicultural diversity, while invisibilizing racism and settler colonialism. Neuchâtel students visibilize the production of migranticized others, invisibilizing nativism and non-migrant/white structural privileges. We end with a plea for context-specific analysis of culture-as-defining-attribute and a deeper understanding of in/visibilization as a significant "missing link" in current analyses of culture and ex/inclusion.