Seeing «race» through a prism: Relational socio-racial hierarchies and immigration

Public opposition to immigration is widespread and politically important. Yet our understanding of this phenomenon has suffered from a serious methodological shortcoming: it often employs aggregate measures of attitudes towards immigrants, which do not distinguish between different migrant groups. Few studies so far examine whether public preferences apply equally to all types of immigrants, or if public opinion distinguishes between social and ethno-racial groups. In one exception, however, Ford examines disaggregated British attitudes to migration from seven different world regions1, and discovers a consistent hierarchy of preferences between immigrant groups, with less opposition to white and culturally more proximate immigrant groups, compared to their non-white and culturally more distinct counterparts. Race matters for immigrants’ integration, but we need to achieve a better understanding of how.