What does “migrant” mean?
Before exploring the word “migratised”, we need to understand the word “migrant”.
The word “migrant” is a general umbrella term to describe people on the move: it includes undocumented migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
It’s a neutral term that names a natural human phenomenon, but it does not consider the way that migrants are treated based on their existence as people on the move.
What does “migratised” mean?
The label of “migratised”, on the other hand, considers the way that migrants are treated based on their existence as people on the move. It describes how some people can be assumed to be migrants, and constructed as such, without actually having been on the move themselves.
It also highlights the conditionality of belonging for diasporic communities, especially for those who are racialised as non-White.
The language of “migratisation”, as coined by Dr Alyosxa Tudor in their article “Cross-fadings of racialisation and migratisation: the postcolonial turn in Western European gender and migration studies”, describes not only the condition of being on the move, but also names and shames the borders, barriers and attitudes that turn people into migrants and “Others”.
Migration is a natural phenomenon, yet the emphasis society assigns to it is a social construct. The language of “migratisation” is therefore important because it points to how migrants are treated, beyond merely naming them as people on the move.
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