The Violence in and the Violence of Gendered Representations of Migrant Others

Author(s) : Carolin Fischer

Source : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3–032-03337-6_13

Abstract:

This chapter explores how theoretical approaches to the workings and repercussions of violence can add important facets to ongoing debates on the production of knowledge in migration studies. It employs theories of violence to uncover how gender is mobilized to amplify hostile representations of individuals and groups that are presented as problematic migrant others. An analysis of three right-wing anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim campaigns in Switzerland reveals a set of recurrent and consequential problems. These result from stereotypical images with racializing connotations, which are widely used in public discourse and migration governance. Violence serves as a symbolic tool to reinforce a sense of dangerous otherness. However, notions of violence can also be employed to inform powerful alternative narratives where ‘the migrant’ as a racialized, problematic figure is replaced with an analysis of the circumstances that created this migrant figure in the first place. Thus violence, if used as a concept and analytical entry point, enables us to approach migration-related issues from new and reflexive angles and helps to rectify the problematic orientation of contemporary migration governance.