Borderlines Seminar: The Migratory Imaginary: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Belonging and Aspirations of Racialized Migrant Youth

When: Thursday, September 5, 2024, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: In-Person (Not in London or the UK? No problem! We’d be delighted to have you join remotely. Email B.fatema@qmul.ac.uk for the online access link)

Speaker: Dr Joshua Kalemba

Contemporary scholarship has increasingly focused on the labour market experiences of racialized migrant youth in predominantly white localities. This research offers valuable insights into the impact of colonial processes, such as racialisation, on these young people's migratory practices and labour market trajectories. However, there is a notable gap in understanding how experiences of coloniality shape these young people's future aspirations, particularly regarding work, and their sense of non/belonging to a place. This talk aims to contribute to these discussions by introducing the concept of the "migratory imaginary." Drawing on Emma Pérez's notion of the "decolonial imaginary" and examining the experiences of Black African youth migrating to Australia, in this talk I conceptualise the migratory imaginary as the practices racialized youth engage in to overcome feelings of exclusion and forge spaces of belonging. These practices involve envisioning themselves in places characterised by familial proximity, the presence of other Black Africans, and opportunities for inclusion that they associate with a fulfilling life, including access to employment opportunities and being part of a community. In this talk I will argue that these practices are liberatory and represent these young people's efforts to counteract and dismantle the impacts of coloniality which seek to construct them as an excluded Other from their racialised migrant position. The talk concludes by reflecting on how the migratory imaginary offers a critical framework for sociologist to understand how experiences of coloniality shape the aspirations of the future of racialized migrant youth in relation to work and how this affects their sense of non/belonging to place.