Chapter 3 “We are here because . . .” : Reading the postsocialist (back) into a migrant politics of presence

Abstract

Increasing and changing migration trends between Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Western European locations, as well as those from outside of Europe to CEE, pose new challenges for the regional study of race and racialisation, including growing diversity and the tightening of border security. This book brings together a range of established and emerging scholars of CEE migration, race, whiteness and post- and decoloniality to explore these themes from/to and within Central and Eastern Europe. The book includes chapters on Bulgarians, Lithuanians, Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs, Ukrainians and Poles, including Polish Roma, in Western Europe and CEE as well as non-CEE migrants at the Polish-Belarus border. The book showcases different aspects of racialisation processes and how they intersect with class and gender, among others, in the context of CEE migrations. The approach of this book is anti-racist and decolonial, in the sense that it builds on decolonial scholarship from and on the region and pushes against discourses of CEE as ‘lagging behind’ and ‘catching up’ that have dominated the scholarship so far. The decolonial perspective on these issues will contribute to urgent critical debates by providing in-depth cross-country insights beyond theoretical argumentation to a renewed global public debate on issues of race and migration. The book is aimed at an international audience of researchers, scholars and students, policy analysts, third sector specialists and those concerned with decolonial perspectives, migration, and race and racialisation in the context of Central and Eastern Europe countries.