Spatial and Social Im/mobility in Forced Migration: Revisiting Class

This editorial makes the case for revisiting class in the context of forced migration. We argue that this is necessary to better grasp the inherent diversity of forced migrants. Forced-migration research has increasingly considered aspects of differentiation, such as race or gender. Yet, scholarly work on social class in this field remains scarce. We argue that forced migrants are wrongly homogenised as ‘poor’ or ‘class-less’, and show how class-related capitals and their transferability and convertibility remain important determinants of their spatial and social (im)mobility. We develop this angle by first giving an overview of the class concepts developed by Marx, Weber, and Bourdieu, and the ways the authors of this special issue employed these concepts. Building our arguments on the contributions to this special issue that engage in empirical analyses in diverse settings, we display how social class and the different forms of capital available to forced migrants influence their perception and capacity for spatial mobility. Moreover, we discuss how class at a given moment shapes forced migrants’ future social mobility in new settings. We conclude by highlighting the considerable variation in socio-economic backgrounds of forced migrants and discussing the effects of the categorisation as ‘refugee’.