Towards geographies of privileged migration: An intersectional perspective

Abstract

While geography has traditionally ‘looked down’ in the search for social justice, a recent trend in the social sciences has argued for thinking through privilege. Taking this call seriously, this paper draws on feminist scholarship and uses intersectionality to demonstrate that reflections about privilege are imperative in the pursuit of social justice. Through laying the groundwork for a theorisation of privilege within and beyond migration geographies, we use transnational circulation, as one of the – unquestioned and taken for granted – characteristics of elites, arguing that an understanding of privilege in migration is critical to understanding and combatting inequalities and injustices. This leads us to argue for the need to explore privilege in relation to its others, such as precarity and vulnerability. We conclude by advancing a research agenda on privilege in (migration) geography that draws upon a feminist ethics of responsibility.