Intersectional approach in the study of trajectories of sociocultural integration of people with migration experience

This article proposes to consider the theoretical and methodological framework of the intersectional approach to the study of migration experience, discrimination and problems of sociocultural integration in general. The article describes an intersectional model of modern capitalist society, which is divided into micro and macro contexts of inequality production. Class, race, ethnicity, gender, and physicality can be viewed as structural positions (statuses) that produce unequal access to labor markets, distribution of income and public goods, and form cultural and social distance between different groups of people, including between the host society and migrants. In intersectional logic, the intersection of statuses generates a system of oppression (domination matrix), which allows a new assessment of the risks and potential of incorporated capitals. Migration experience is heterogeneous, due to the intersection of different statuses (gender, corporeality, ethnicity, race, class), it can have different effects in terms of producing inequality. Social inequality within the migration community (intracategory analysis of the social group of migrants) determines the direction of the trajectories of integration; they will be completely different, taking into account the intersection of statuses for one or another considered social subgroup. It is more and more difficult for people with migration experience to concentrate on the integration process under the influence of two groups of factors: (a) the availability of the digital information environment and transport, which make it possible to maintain intensive contact with the culture and language of the country of origin; (b) lack of an effective integration infrastructure (inclusive, transparent conditions for integration) and xenophobia of the host society. An analytical review of the social, cultural, theoretical prerequisites for the emergence and development of the intersectional approach allows assessing the prospects for intersectionality both in the context of social policy and in the field of academic research of issues at the intersection of diversity, discrimination and integration. With reference to the empirical material of the author's own qualitative research, an attempt is made to conceptually reflect the applicability of this approach in the conditions of Russian society. On the one hand, the ideas that are described in the framework of the intersectional approach seem quite obvious, but at the same time they are classic for the sociological theory of stratification and for the understanding of the root causes of existing inequalities.

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