Swiss Migration and the Privilege of ›Otherness‹

Author(s) : Angela Sanders

Source: https://movements-journal.org/issues/10.mobility-regime/13.sanders–swiss-migration-and-the-privilege-of-otherness.html

Abstract:

This essay expands on the migration of Swiss nationality holders to Peru and how their quest for a better life is shaped by global racial hierarchies. Despite its historical dimension the mobility of Swiss nationality holders is rarely framed as migration as the notion of such is still associated to economic need while Swiss mobility is discursively associated with success stories and the Swiss as being beneficial for respective host countries. Peru as a destination of travel represents a place where the legacy of colonialism has a big impact on the privileges experienced by new arrivals from Switzerland, who predominantly are racialized ›white‹. Becoming a migrant in Peru is not tied to assimilatory demands on the part of the host country. On the contrary, becoming racialized ›white‹ and being labelled ›gring@s‹ facilitates Swiss migrants a social upward mobility within the highly stratified Peruvian society. Being racialized ›white‹ and therefor associated to a distinct class represents a new experience for Swiss people, who in Switzerland took up the ›invisible‹ position of whiteness. The essay addresses the question how Swiss migrants adapt to positions of racial privilege.

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Keywords transnational migration, whiteness, coloniality, lifestyle migration, postcolonialism