Xenophobia and the Politics of Belonging

Undergraduate / Graduate

What work does xenophobia do in the making and marking of nation-states? What does it mean to belong, in a world structured by migration? In this course, we will examine the practices and politics of exclusion, of othering and of unbelonging. Drawing on cases from North America and Sub-Saharan Africa, we will study xenophobia at different points along its spectrum of intensity - from mass atrocities to the seemingly banal ways in which othering and exclusion are baked into everyday life. We will study each case in depth in its own right, as well as how it sits within broader experiences of exclusion and violence around the world and across time. In the course, we will explore theoretical debates surrounding nativism, autochthony, and different forms of nationalism, and the ways they relate to xenophobia. Scholars of migration and belonging have long shown that collective identities are constructed in large part in relation to an external other. Does (one person's) belonging necessitate (another's) unbelonging? In this course we ask: how does the 'stranger' come to be seen as threatening or destabilizing? How does one come to be seen as a 'stranger'?