By Inka Stock | Issue 26
European contemporary migration policies can lead to precarity and exclusion for migrants, particularly those deemed undesired movers. At the same time, these policies reshape middle-class migrants as ideal neoliberal subjects, who support these restrictive and exclusive migration regimes. For a long time, migration has been regarded by states and markets as a tool to promote progress and prosperity, at least when it occurs under the right conditions, such as international students, workers in specific sectors, or highly skilled migrants. At the same time, contemporary migration policies justify the enforcement (including by force) of restrictions to mobility and access to social services for those deemed undeserving. The promise of security and prosperity for the mobile few therefore rests on the premise of insecurity and crisis for many others, among them a great number of today’s middle- and working-class migrants and refugees. As such, modern neoliberal capitalist systems and their migration policies often fail to deliver security, upward mobility, and freedom. Instead, they can heighten insecurity, erode social status, and reduce quality of life for many migrant groups.
In this sense, contemporary migration management manifests as a crisis-ridden and contradictory set of practices. This dynamic was further exposed through the COVID-19 pandemic. Even privileged migrants, those who stand to gain economically and socially from international mobility, were exposed to social and health risks during the pandemic. Migrants faced challenges securing or retaining work, reuniting with family, accessing social protection, or returning to their country of origin. There was a reported increase in cases of discrimination, xenophobia, and racism against migrants, along with a rise in the spread of misinformation.
In light of this, it is interesting to explore why some privileged migrants continue to defend neoliberal promises of migration as a path toward progress and security. This behaviour occurs despite their negative experiences with restrictive migration policies during the pandemic and their downward social mobility in its aftermath. The answers I offer here also help to illustrate how practices, policies, and ideas that are associated with neoliberalism reproduce themselves in the face of crises and popular opposition.
My argument is based on research that I conducted with middle-class migrants in Germany between 2017 and 2019. Although my data was gathered before the pandemic, it offers insights into migrants’ perspectives on social inequality in the context of crises that may be applied to the context of the pandemic and its aftermath. In my research, many of the respondents were confronted with threats of status loss and experienced some form of downward social mobility either before they left their country of origin or just after they arrived in Germany. However, instead of blaming governments or capitalism for their crises or precarious living conditions, they almost always framed their trajectory as one of success and relative resilience in the face of multiple threats. Crucially, they tended to recount how they were able to handle and overcome crises due to their self-perceived cultural or symbolic capital, which set them apart from other people and migrant groups whom they considered socially inferior. They were keen to explain that the situation these migrants were in was due to their limited cultural, social, or financial resources, rather than a result of systemic effects. These findings indicate that migrants who experience downward social mobility threats are nevertheless likely to continue to buy into the ideal of individual prosperity and the dream of upward social mobility promised by neoliberalism.
My research showed that this happens because different crises can affect how middle-class population groups conceptualise social status mobility and their position in social hierarchies. Those in precarious positions in global labour markets were particularly prone to clinging to the promises of meritocratic wealth accumulation and upward social mobility provided by liberal capitalism. I argue that this was due to their heightened exposure to economic and social shocks which they hoped to confront by relying on their self-perceived set of resources, distinguishing them from migrants in inferior social positions.
The experience of personal suffering and downward social mobility endured by migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged acts of resistance to restrictive migration policies. In 2021, for example, migrants in New Zealand organised protests calling for an end to the practice of attaching visas to employers, which made it easier for employers to exploit migrant workers. They also demanded the lifting of border restrictions to allow workers trapped overseas to travel home.
Despite such instances of solidarity between migrants, my research indicates that shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and the status anxieties they produce are likely to lead certain groups of middle-class migrants to justify the use of restrictive migration policies. Evidence from Germany shows that large numbers of Russian-Germans, predominantly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, support the right-wing AfD party and its anti-immigrant positions. In this sense, the effects that COVID-19 had on middle-class migrants’ positions in social hierarchies may benefit the rise of radical right-populism among migrant populations, because they provoke the need to search for scapegoats and easy answers in light of injustice. Given my research here, and as right-wing politicians increasingly link the neoliberal narrative of meritocratic wealth accumulation with restrictive migration policies and nationalism, it is no surprise that some middle-class migrants support these policies. Rather than showing solidarity with other migrants or identifying with their struggles, they align with extremely restrictive measures. To foster solidarity and inclusion, it may be necessary to promote political solutions which conceptualise sustainability, equality and progress as a global endeavour rather than a nationalist project.
Inka Stock is a sociologist and currently works as the scientific coordinator of a research training group at the Interdisciplinary Institute for Gender Research at Bielefeld University, Germany. Her research focuses on the links between migration and social inequality, with a specific interest in class, race and gender.
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