COVID-19 and the Racialisation of Migrants in the Global South

Abstract

This introduction reviews existing literature on the racialization of migrants during pandemic times and outlines the major contribution of the papers in this collection to the literature on race, pandemics and South-South racialization. This Special Issue shifts the setting from the Global North to the Global South in examining the racialized experiences of Asian and African migrants during the Covid-19 pandemic, presenting case studies drawn from South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Bangladesh and Argentina. It attempts to bridge the gap between race and migration studies by highlighting the multifaceted ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic disrupts, perpetuates and reconfigures existing social hierarchies and unequal power relations in the Global South. It also highlights the historical and structural contexts that shape processes of racialization along multiple axes of social inequality, such as class, gender, nationality, language, religion, citizenship and immigration status.