Migration and Racialization in Times of "Crisis" - (Studies in International Development and Globalization)

About the Book

Modern history's recurring upheavals--health, humanitarian, financial, and more--reveal a system governed by instability, sustaining racial and patriarchal capitalism. This work exposes how such events obscure systemic oppression, erode freedoms, and harm marginalized communities.

Book Synopsis

Modern history is marked by a relentless sequence of upheavals--health, ecological, financial, humanitarian, and beyond. Far from being temporary disruptions, these events reveal a paradox: they are not anomalies, but enduring features of a system governed through perpetual instability. This form of governance sustains and reinforces racial and patriarchal capitalism.

Examining the mechanisms of crisis sheds light on the necropolitics of power--the ways states exert control over life itself. The language of crisis often obscures the systemic oppression underlying these events, legitimizing the erosion of rights and freedoms while intensifying surveillance, profiling, and arbitrary arrests. Black and racialized people, Indigenous communities, as well as refugees and migrants are frequently among those most impacted.

Through an analysis of diverse examples--healthcare, migration, Indigenous rights, academic freedom, and Islamophobia--this work delves into the construction and rhetoric of "crisis." It explores how populist and supremacist ideologies shape public discourse and perpetuate patterns of visibility and ignorance, with profound sociological effects on marginalized communities.

The English and French editions, each with different content and authors, complete one another.

About the Author

Christina Clark-Kazak (Editor)
Christina Clark-Kazak is Full Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, President of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration and outgoing Editor-in-Chief of Refuge: Canadian Journal on Refugees. She has previously worked for York University, Saint Paul University, the Canadian government and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. She has also served as President of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Director of York University's Refugee Studies Centre and Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) of York University's bilingual Glendon Campus. Her research interests include age discrimination in migration and development; the political participation of young refugees; and interdisciplinary methodology.

Leila Benhadjoudja (Editor)
Leila Benhadjoudja is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and at the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on Political sociology, Feminist and Gender Theory, Race and Ethnicity as well as Postcolonialism and Cultural Studies.