Modern-Day Xenophobia

Critical Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on the Roots of Anti-Immigrant Prejudice

Oksana Yakushko

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783030006433
• eBook ISBN: 9783030006440
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychoanalysis
• Index: Psychology

This book engages the topic of xenophobia from both psychological and socio-political approaches. Recently, xenophobia as a social standpoint or social attitude has come under increased scrutiny by the public, scholars, and educators; however, few works have directly summarized current theories of xenophobia as well as articulated critical perspectives on the issue. This work provides an overview of the concept, historical factors related to its development, and a review of varied theoretical perspectives. The intertwining of psychological and sociological perspectives allows the author to present a multi-dimensional, multi-layered argument in a way which effectively prevents any attempt to apply any one single over-arching theory, and thus effectively presents the complexity of the topic at hand.

© The Author(s) 2018

Oksana YakushkoModern-Day Xenophobiahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00644-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Oksana Yakushko¹

(1)

Department of Clinical Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA, USA

Keyword

■■■

End Abstract

Awareness of xenophobia emerged in recent years because of the rise of anti-immigrant prejudice around the globe. Throughout history relation to foreigners or the newcomers differed based on social, religious, and political factors: at times they were welcomed and even elevated (e.g., xenophilia ), at other times they coexisted independently within cultures that seemed to embrace a metropolitan multi-national views (Carballo, Roscoe, & Feinman, 2014; Curtin, 1984; Haynes, 2000). In contrast to these responses, xenophobia reflects a socio-historical mode of an intolerance or hatred of immigrants by the native-born group. Typically, xenophobia is discernable, like prejudices toward other minority groups, through demonizing immigrants as part of an effort to pronounce the host nation-states and their native-born individuals as pure or good while they displace their economic and social problems on the foreign others (Cacho , 2000, 2012; Foner & Fredrickson, 2004; Gabaccia, 2002; Taggart, 2000; Yakushko , 2009b). In addition, because patterns of immigration are determined by critical historical events, such as wars, political instabilities, or other crises, the nation-states directly or indirectly implicated in these conflicts, tend to decry the waves of migration often caused by their own actions (Abromeit, Norman, Marotta, & Chesterton, 2015; Boehnke, Hagan, & Hefler, 1998; Bosma, 2007; Kam & Kinder, 2007; Marsella & Ring, 2003; Sloan, 2005; Williamson, 1997; Zinn , 2010).

Racism , sexism , homophobia, and other forms of collective prejudice , although focused on distinct human axis of difference, often are the result of shared patterns of social and historical rationales of their exclusion and oppression (Allport, 1954; Baldwin , 1998; Cacho , 2012; Comas-Díaz & Greene, 1994; Fanon , 1959/2008; Foner & Fredrickson, 2004; Gabaccia 2002; McClintock, 1995; Yakushko , 2009b). Racial minorities , women, and anyone perceived as a threat to social order have been demonized by political and religious authorities alike, proclaimed as threats , and blamed for varied national struggles (Fanon , 1959/2008; Patterson, 1982; Ott, 1995; Wistrich, 2011; Zinn , 2010). For example, over the last millennium of Western European history women, Jews, and people living in poverty have been blamed for decline of many nations because of their perceived threat . The Malleus Maleficarum or the Witches Hammer (Kramer & Sprenger, 1486), a horrific social and scientific manual for identifying and destroying individuals who were perceived as possessed by demonic powers, presented women’s sexuality and knowledge as a threat to the survival of Christendom. Similarly, anti-Semitism thrived on the production of cultural artifacts, especially books and tracts that characterized Jews as a menace (Katz, 1980). Eugenics , a scientific movement based on social Darwinism (i.e., human differences explained in terms of survival of the fittest and their procreation ), is another example of an effort to identify and eliminate groups considered parasitic to the “civilized” evolutionary fit nations (e.g., racial minorities , people with disabilities, the poor) (Bashford & Levine, 2010; Black, 2003; Selden, 1999; Tucker, 1996; Yakushko , in review). These varied forms of what Wistrich (1999) termed heterophobia or fear and hatred of groups that are perceived as different and as others.

The current rhetoric and policies in relation to immigrants around the globe provides an opportunity to re-examine historical and contemporary patterns specific to anti-immigrant prejudice . In Europe, the United States and many other areas of the world, xenophobia has become a visible and often central socio-cultural ideology that promotes the image of immigrants as dangerous parasitic intruders and immigration as a destructive tidal wave . According to Smithsonian contributor Daley (2016), recent political and social events propelled the term xenophobia into public consciousness because it “summed up the spirit of the age,” leading the website Dictionary.com to proclaim xenophobia “2016 word of the year” (online). Daley highlighted that online interest in the term xenophobia was not only stirred by the recent political campaigns in the United States and around the globe, but also by such news as violent attacks on foreigners in South Africa during spring of 2015. Nearly a 1000% increase in searches for xenophobia online was recorded the day following U.K. Brexit vote, Daley reported.

Among the most evident in the now infamous presidential candidacy speech given in June 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump promoted his anti-immigrant policy as a cornerstone of his proposed administration, stating that

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting. (Silva, 2018, online)

In his attack on sanctuary city policy, specifically in California, Donald Trump proclaimed: “These aren’t people. These are animals ,” further asserting that “California’s law provides safe harbor to some of the most vicious and violent offenders on Earth, like MS-13 gang members putting innocent men, women, and children at the mercy of these sadistic criminals” (Korte & Gomez, 2018, online).

These sentiments, while amplified through political and cultural rhetoric, are typical of xenophobic attitudes held by many native-born individuals toward immigrants. The attitudes have direct impact on shaping not only the native-born individuals’ opinions but also views that immigrants themselves are made to hold about themselves or other immigrants (Fanon , 1959/2008). In a book of interviews with immigrant women , Berger (2005) highlighted these women’s perceptions of discrimination and prejudice as in the story of Tara, a legal immigrant from Central Europe, that described her experiences as being viewed as a “nobody, human dust that can be easily ignored and dismissed” (p. 80).

Xenophobia , like other forms of prejudice , cannot be separated from other forms of soci...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Hatred of Strangers: Defining Xenophobia and Related Concepts
• 3. The Immigrant Tides: Xenophobia in Western History Xenophobia as Neither Universal Nor Historically Invariable
• 4. Germs, Peacocks, and Scheming Domestics: Theories That Construct or Confront Xenophobia
• 5. How to Welcome a Stranger
• Back Matter