AMST 312
Contemporary Immigration Landscapes: Producing Difference and Value in Migration Spring 2024
Division II
Cross-listed LATS 335 / WGSS 321
This is not the current course catalog

What is the relationship between racial formations, transnational migrations, and power? How do geometries of power shape our relationship to place? This course examines geographies of transnational migration, bringing together insights from critical race theory, queer theory, Indigenous studies, and postcolonial theories to enrich our understanding of human geography. We will look at the use of ethnic and racial formations as a bridge between cultural and political geography in the contemporary US immigration landscape. Through an interdisciplinary exploration of ‘migration,’ we will examine the depth and range of migrants’ experiences and how these communities’ lives are structured through various axes of difference, such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and documentation status. We will consider how gender and sexuality structure racial formations and determine notions of value. We will give attention to the variegated landscape of immigration enforcement and its relationship to issues of labor, political economy, and environmental justice, among others. Through materials that embrace both historical and contemporary perspectives, this course will help students develop a critical understanding of how space matters when considering transnational processes of migration as well as migrant communities’ cultural place-making practices throughout the US. This course asks students to compare and contrast the intellectual genealogies covered and apply these theories of transnational racial formations to case studies that focus on political interventions for social justice (such as UndocuQueers in the immigrant justice movement).