Transnationalizing Inequalities in Europe

This book combines transnational, intersectional and cultural-sociological perspectives to develop a conceptual tool to analyze patterns, contexts and mechanisms of cross-border inequalities. First, synthesizing the theories of social boundaries and of intersectionality, it approaches patterns of social inequalities as intersectionally-produced sociocultural boundaries, with "gender," "ethnicity"/"race," "class" and several other categories being sets of unequal social relations. Cross-border inequalities are analysed as spatialized inequalities, with "space" (which includes the cross-border categories "global" and "transnational") considered as a specific type of sociocultural boundaries. Second, in line with assemblage theory, the societal contexts of cross-border inequalities such as the EU are then conceptualized as assemblages that are shaped by an interplay of spatialized and other types of inequalities. Third, the mechanisms of cross-border inequalities are analysed as "regimes of intersection" that relate spatialized cross-border inequalities to other types of unequal social relations such as gendered, ethnicized/racialized and class-related inequalities. Examples of such regimes of intersection include regulations on migration, internationalization programmes at universities, diversity policies and even family memories. To illustrate the conceptual elements developed in this way, the book provides evidence from empirical research on migration and mobility in Europe, specifically from research on recent migration between Ukraine and Germany, and addresses these developments as processes that are paradigmatic for the study of spatialized cross-border inequalities in general, and for the study of the transnationalized forms they involve in particular.

Anna Amelina is a junior professor of Sociology with a focus on migration studies at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.