Imagining Migrants: Racializing Categorizations and Formations of “Beginners”

This study investigates racializing categorizations in relation to the field of migration. The main purpose of this study is to scrutinize the prevailing representational forms of migrant Others. In an attempt to reveal the underlying assumptions in ordering social differentiation, racialization is employed as one of the analytical concepts in this study. By taking a social constructionist point of view, I examine the creation of racial categories as a political project which is rooted in colonialism and persists in exclusionary practices. Locating this study within discussions of new racism, culturalist explanations in the construction of difference are examined in order to reveal how racialization is maintained through inferiorization of culture and naturalization of difference. The connection between racialization and migration reveals itself in the immigration policies. The discursive functioning of “immigrant integration” and “social cohesion” are linked to the way states identify a set of core values to characterize their uniqueness and the modes of belonging vis-à-vis to be integrated outsiders. The empirical part examines racial formations within the field of immigrant integration and asylum reception in Finland. Racial formations of assumed-to-be Muslim asylum-seekers are discussed in relation to the nation-state paradigm and the Orientalist archive of knowledge. The empirical investigation pays attention to the particular socio-historical context in Finland, which is manifested at the intersections of Finnish exceptionalism, welfare state tradition and achievements of gender equality. The research data generated for this study include 11 interviews and the video set introduced by the Finnish Immigration Service, namely Beginner's guide to Finland Part 1 and Part 2