The coloniality of distinction: Class, race and whiteness among post-crisis Italian migrants

Abstract

This article explores how strategies of class distinction reproduce racialised hierarchies between ‘modern’ and ‘backward’ European populations. Drawing on 57 interviews with Italian migrants who moved to England after the 2008 economic crisis, and combining Bourdieusian class analysis and decolonial critique, the article shows that migrants in different social positions are equally concerned with claiming closeness to the UK’s meritocratic culture and with distancing themselves from Italy’s backwardness. However, they mobilise unequal forms of capital to sustain this claim. More resourceful migrants use economic and cultural capital to demonstrate fit with British culture and to racialise less resourceful co-nationals as too ‘Southern’ to belong. The latter stress self-resilience and Italianness as sources of distinction, but more frequently report exploitation and stigma in the context of insecure professional fields. The article advances research on class, racialisation and European whiteness, unravelling the coloniality of distinction, namely how class helps more resourceful migrants to symbolically claim North European whiteness while displacing ‘race’ – in the forms of laziness, lack of rationality and self-restraint – onto less resourceful migrants. This reveals how, in the post-2008 context, enduring narratives of South–North difference legitimise class inequalities, exploitation and neoliberal forms of self-governance.

The ambiguous lives of ‘the other whites’: Class and racialisation of Eastern European migrants in the UK

“…The above studies, while offering an insight into the ways in which Eastern European migrants are racialised and racialise others, often treat migrants in the UK as a homogeneous group. Less attention has been placed on understanding intersectional dimensions that, in our view, are crucial to understanding the processes through which racialisation occurs with some exceptions (Antonucci & Varriale, 2020;Gawlewicz, 2016;Varriale, 2021). In thinking about class in this context it is useful to draw on the Bourdieusian conceptualisation of class as multidimensional and encompassing different forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1986) that are (if available and transferable -see Nowicka, 2015) employed by migrants in navigating social hierarchies in the host society.…”

“…These processes have also affected migrants from Eastern Europe, who, especially in the run up to the Brexit referendum, have been stigmatised and discursively labelled as wild, uncivilised and not deserving to be part of the 'community of value' (Anderson, 2013;Blachnicka-Ciacek et al, 2021). Importantly, Varriale (2021) adds that these processes of stigmatising people in low-skilled jobs can take place even within national groups of migrants. Similar processes have been observed such as the gradual creation of working class racism and racialisation of poor whites in the US (see Hartigan, 2005;Mondon & Winter, 2019;Roediger, 1991Roediger, /2017.…”

The other Eurostars: lifestyle migration, class and race among vocationally trained Italians

“…The possibility of moving towards more self-fulfilling employment was significantly shaped by participants' access to cultural, economic and social capital, and while many participants experienced occupational mobility (Parutis 2014), this process did not simply depend on their individual agency and 'hard work' (Varriale 2021). Andrew, the black Italian introduced earlier, was working in a warehouse when we met, and was experiencing significant restrictions to both his leisure and future plans:…”

“…Cultural imaginaries also emerge as prominent in studies of intra-EU migration. Southern and Eastern Europeans associate Northern and Western Europe with more meritocratic and tolerant societies in contrast to the corruption and provincialism of their home countries (López Rodríguez 2010; Bartolini, Gropas, and Triandafyllidou 2017;Varriale 2021). Global cities like London, Berlin and Paris attract migrants interested in experiencing their busy way of life and cosmopolitanism (Moroşanu 2013;Dubucs et al 2016;Quassoli and Dimitriadis 2019).…”

“…However, the idea of meritocracy was widespread among participants, including those who experienced smooth occupational mobility. It is thus difficult to connect it only with experiences of downward social mobility (seeVarriale 2021).…”