Differentiating space invaders: Negotiating ‘the migrant’ through moving difference

Abstract

This article extends and applies the concept ‘space invaders’ to the intersections between processes of social differentiation and international migration. Drawing on empirical research in London that combined an 18-month ethnography in places of leisure with 33 in-depth interviews with Brazilians, it focuses on how different Brazilians try to value themselves within the political environment of the United Kingdom that degrades and stigmatises the racialised, classed and legal category of ‘the migrant’, or ‘the space invader’. The article argues that the concept ‘space invaders’ makes visible the ways in which differences, rooted in the colonial and postcolonial history of Brazil, are reconstituted in new processes of social differentiation and racialisation when Brazilians move to London. This allows us to frame migratory experiences beyond generalising and homogenising representations.