The ‘Threatening Immigrant’ in Flanders, 1930-1980: Redrawing the Social Space
Author(s)
Swyngedouw, Marc
Abstract
The notion of constructing social space was developed by Bourdieu and can help explain why some migrant groups are seen as threatening. This can be applied to Jews in the 1930s and Muslims in the 1980s. Immigrants were seen as synonymous with Jews in the 1930s and Turks and Moroccans in the 1980s in Flanders, Belgium. The background in both these cases has been economic and social change. Religion has been used, and ethnic nationalism legitimises cultural racism.
