Theorizing and Proving Intersectionality in Transnational Contexts

Abstract

This introductory chapter of the book will develop the idea that migrant identifications are transnational constructs expressing and reflecting the migrants’ different experiences vis-à-vis the multiple discourses of inclusion and exclusion that create the intersecting social hierarchies that the migrants become embedded in when they attempt to access resources through migration. We forward a new approach to intersectionality analysis, linking such analysis to the migrants’ attempted conversions of cultural, social, and economic capital into each other—within and across national boundaries. This chapter then elaborates with the migrants identifications are a core indicator of their perceptions of the outcome of their attempts to access new and desired resources through converting their capital. We then substantiate that such an analytical framework is a new methodological and theoretical tool that is able to explain the fact that despite common their characteristics, groups of migrants can develop very different identifications in the transnational spaces they constructed through migrations. The implications of these findings are then outlined, both on the theoretical and practical/policy levels. Emphasis is on showing that it can be problematic to speak of migrants’ race, ethnicity, and culture.