Abstract
This article explores the various types of racism and racialization comparing the experiences of descendants of Kurdish, Tamil, and Vietnamese refugees in Switzerland. Drawing on qualitative data from 45 interviews, the article shows that children of refugees experience several forms of racialization, the impact of which varies. The article shows that children of refugees tend to deny or relativize the interpersonal racism they experience daily, whilst they name and reject forms of racialization that have an effect on their socio-economic mobility as discrimination and racism. The paper argues that experiences of racialization explain why some adult children of refugees do not feel they ‘fit in’ despite their upwards socio-economic mobility.
Highlights
This article explores the various types of racism and racialization comparing the experiences of descendants of Kurdish, Tamil, and Vietnamese refugees in Switzerland
The data was collected using in-depth interviews based on a semi-structured topic guide which covered on a range of topics: educational experiences and outcomes, employment, intergenerational mobility in relation to education and employment, social networks, community engagement, transnational relations and reflections on identity, belonging, racism and how refugee backgrounds shape lives
Denied or relativized experiences of racialization we analyze the first accounts from the adult children of refugees that we interviewed on racialization, and how and why these accounts tend to deny or relativize the interviewees’ experiences of racialization
Summary
This article explores the various types of racism and racialization comparing the experiences of descendants of Kurdish, Tamil, and Vietnamese refugees in Switzerland. This article, which forms part of a comparative European project, focuses on the experiences of racialization from the perspectives of adult children of refugees born in Switzerland It draws on data collected with children of refugees from Tamil, Vietnamese and Kurdish backgrounds who have spent some or most of their childhoods in Geneva area. Ossipow et al Comparative Migration Studies (2019) 7:19 subsumed within the broader analyses of second generation ethnic minority backgrounds (Crul, Schneider, & Lelie, 2012) In this sense this paper fills a gap in the literature by focusing on the experiences of racialization amongst the second generation from refugee backgrounds. In these sections we stress the similarities between the three groups whilst the last empirical section highlights some of the differences
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