Digesting Difference: Migrants, Refugees, and Incorporation in Europe

Abstract

This chapter argues that the most critical issue posed by migration in Europe is the effect of sociocultural difference on the maintenance and emergence of social bodies. This issue is typically glossed in political and public discourse as integration, though we show that this “thin” concept is plagued by various limitations. We propose instead a “thick” concept of incorporation, which grounds a theoretical framework that focuses on two critical processes. The first is the incorporation—or digestion—of sociocultural difference itself in diverse European societies. The second is the incorporation—or constitution—of new social bodies and their associated senses of mutual belonging and identification. We argue that processes of incorporation are remaking Europe, its people, and the communities in which they live and interact.

This collection draws on contributions from two conferences, sponsored by the Princeton’s Program in Contemporary Politics and Society and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS). These were “Xenophobia and Social Integration: Forms, Functions, Facilitators, Inhibitors” (2015) and “Digesting Difference: Modes of Social Incorporation in Europe” (2018). A few of the chapters were subsequently presented and refined at the 2018 biennial meeting of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Stockholm. We thank PIIRS for funding and support. We are also grateful to Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi for a close read of our penultimate draft of this Introduction.