The article argues that categories used to sort migrants in the Global South are continually reshaped by everyday life, not fixed by policy.
The article examines the relationship between migrants and migration categories in the Global South. It argues that classification is important for social organization, but that categories are unstable, permeable, and shaped by socio-cultural context.
By focusing on everyday encounters—how categories are produced, used, and challenged—the paper suggests that migration categories are neither coherent nor universal. It also points to how much migration research has been shaped by a Northern bias, and calls for more equitable and inclusive ways to build and apply these categories.
Migration labels keep changing
The authors argue (as an agenda-setting contribution) that migration categories—including “irregular,” “labour,” “privileged,” and even “migrant”—are continually reshaped through everyday practices and lived experience. They describe categories as blurred, negotiated, and contested, and emphasize that the categories are not coherent or universal across contexts.
Conceptual framing with limited detail
This is a conceptual article and an agenda-setting contribution, drawing on empirical cases discussed in a special issue rather than presenting a single new dataset or experiment. As described in the abstract, the strength of the paper is in its theoretical and phenomenological framing of how categories are produced and inhabited; however, the abstract does not provide specific study designs, measurements, or results that would let readers assess how widespread particular effects are across settings.
// Source
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies · 2026 · DOI: 10.1080/1369183x.2026.2702659
View paper (DOI)Published 2026-08-03 Authors: Usman Mahar, Roger Norum
Institutions: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, University of Oulu
