{"title":"Racialized immigrants becoming part of the city: connecting migration, space and race – commentary to van Liempt","authors":"Mélodine Sommier","doi":"10.11143/fennia.129437","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Building on Ilse van Liempt’s (2023) lecture, this commentary addresses the connection and shift between forced displacement and local emplacement by addressing what becoming part of the city means for racialized immigrants. By bringing forward the notion of racialization I hope to contribute to a growing body of literature discussing how malleable and productive the concept of race – albeit erased and relegated to the past – keeps on shaping conversations about and across Europe. Connecting migration, space and race offers a particularly rich context in which to have this discussion because, as all three elements are mutually constructive, addressing them together exposes some of the complexities and nuances of the experience of becoming part of the city for racialized immigrants.\nAddressing this topic calls into question my own experience as an immigrant which, as a French white woman living in Finland and working at the University, is shaped by many privileges. It is therefore important to highlight the position of power from which I talk, in part because of the extent to which whiteness permeates much of our conceptual and methodological work as researchers. However, committed we, as individuals, might be to anti-racism, it is important to recognize that we are working within the structures of academia and as such are working within a (discursive) space that has historically been organized through whiteness. Exposing the racial structures at play in Academia is a small but critical step to contest it and work towards change within the academy as well as society.","PeriodicalId":45082,"journal":{"name":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Fennia-International Journal of Geography","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.129437","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Building on Ilse van Liempt’s (2023) lecture, this commentary addresses the connection and shift between forced displacement and local emplacement by addressing what becoming part of the city means for racialized immigrants. By bringing forward the notion of racialization I hope to contribute to a growing body of literature discussing how malleable and productive the concept of race – albeit erased and relegated to the past – keeps on shaping conversations about and across Europe. Connecting migration, space and race offers a particularly rich context in which to have this discussion because, as all three elements are mutually constructive, addressing them together exposes some of the complexities and nuances of the experience of becoming part of the city for racialized immigrants.
Addressing this topic calls into question my own experience as an immigrant which, as a French white woman living in Finland and working at the University, is shaped by many privileges. It is therefore important to highlight the position of power from which I talk, in part because of the extent to which whiteness permeates much of our conceptual and methodological work as researchers. However, committed we, as individuals, might be to anti-racism, it is important to recognize that we are working within the structures of academia and as such are working within a (discursive) space that has historically been organized through whiteness. Exposing the racial structures at play in Academia is a small but critical step to contest it and work towards change within the academy as well as society.
在Ilse van Liempt(2023)讲座的基础上,本评论通过解决成为城市的一部分对种族化移民意味着什么,解决了被迫流离失所和当地安置之间的联系和转变。通过提出种族化的概念,我希望对越来越多的文献做出贡献,这些文献讨论种族概念是如何具有可塑性和生产性的——尽管已经被抹去并被归入过去——继续塑造有关欧洲和整个欧洲的对话。将移民、空间和种族联系起来,为讨论提供了一个特别丰富的背景,因为这三个因素是相互建设性的,把它们放在一起讨论,就会暴露出种族化移民成为城市一部分的一些复杂性和细微差别。谈到这个话题,我对自己作为一名移民的经历提出了质疑,作为一名生活在芬兰并在大学工作的法国白人女性,我的经历受到许多特权的影响。因此,强调我所说的权力地位是很重要的,部分原因是白人在很大程度上渗透了我们作为研究人员的概念和方法工作。然而,作为个人,我们可能致力于反种族主义,重要的是要认识到,我们是在学术界的结构内工作,因此是在一个历史上通过白人组织起来的(话语)空间内工作。揭露在学术界起作用的种族结构是对抗它的一个小而关键的一步,并致力于在学术界和社会内部进行变革。