Status (in)congruence in migration

The social order is sustained by interlocked racial-class hierarchies. Building on a case study of transnationally mobile French Muslim professionals, this article examines the national entrenchment of these racial-class hierarchies. It unpacks the various racial-class formations migrants encounter during their transnational journey, and how these formations manifest as embodied dispositions. For many French Muslim professionals, spatial mobility serves a project of racial and class mobility, providing access to middle-class privileges previously denied to them in France. It also renders more tangible the national foundations of racism and Islamophobia, making strange taken-for-granted situations in French society. Drawing on extensive interviews that center on life histories, the article emphasizes how minority individuals acquire knowledge about racism and make sense of these experiences as they move across borders. Ultimately, it argues that spatial mobility can have transformative effects on the incorporated sets of racialized dispositions that propel individuals to see, feel, and act in certain ways, pointing to the heuristic value of a transnational approach to intersectionality studies.