Neoliberalism, Racialisation and Middling Migrants in Poland

This book analyses the complex relations between racism and neoliberalism in the lives of middling migrants in Poland. Focusing on ‘middling migrants’ – a heterogeneous category of migrants who are neither a highly-paid elite, nor low-paid or low-skilled workers – it offers a novel approach to the manner in which the intricate relationship between racism and neoliberalism plays out in migrants’ lived experiences of and their strategies for coping with racism. Based on qualitative research among migrants from Western Europe, South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and the post-Soviet area, the authors argue that while experiencing racism on a daily basis, middling migrants perpetuate the neoliberal hierarchy of desirable and undesirable migrants, while reproducing its logic of silencing and marginalising racism as a social problem. An empirically grounded study of the relationship between racism and neoliberalism in relation to migration – and the conditions under which racism is enabled to persist – Neoliberalism, Racialisation and Middling Migrants in Poland will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and politics with interests in migration and diaspora, and race, racism and ethnicity.