Migration and the Nation

Abstract

During the last decade, we have witnessed two opposed social and political trends. On the one hand, there has been a comeback of nationalism. Examples abound from Trump’s “make America great again”, to Modi’s Hindu nationalism, to Bolsonaro’s Brazilian populist nationalism, to Orbán’s Hungary, and Le Pen’s or Salvini’s ‘patriotic’ overtones, only to name a few. These parties promote aggressive, nativist, and populist nationalism discourses which see the relations between nations and nation-states as a zero-sum game. They privilege erecting borders, both territorial and symbolic, against minorities, migrants or refugees, other nation-states and supra-national political formations like, in Europe, the European Union.