“I know I belong to a kind of migration that is perceived [to be] less problematic, but still, I am [a migrant]!” Migrant Self-Identification and Empathy amongst Privileged Migrants in Brussels

While the mediatization and the politization of the management of the European Union's physical borders has been exacerbated by the refugee reception crisis of 2015-2016, the expansion of 'symbolic' borders – which materialize through exclusionary attitudes towards migrants – deserves further attention, considering their crucial implications on social cohesion. This communication is based on a PhD thesis which more largely investigates the perceptions of (privileged) migrants from Italy, Greece, and Turkey living in Brussels vis-à-vis migrants and immigration in their country of origin. Amongst other things, this thesis seeks to highlight migrant categorization processes as powerful othering tools, which hierarchize migrants based on their perceived (un)deservingness and (un)desirability, along nationality, class, age, gender, race, ethnicity, and religious lines, amongst others. Drawing from 32 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted between November 2020 and July 2021, this paper investigates the extent to which the self-identification process of privileged migrants produces empathy and solidarity with socio-economically disadvantaged migrants. Our findings attest to the complexity and fluidity of migrant self-identification processes and demonstrates the key role of perspective-taking and reflexivity around one’s privileged migration status in circumventing othering and exclusion discourses and practices towards marginalized migrant groups.