1While linking “migration” and “privilege” may in some ways seem to defy common sense, it also challenges the assumptions of the social sciences. The notion of “privileged migration”, popularised by Sheila Croucher’s pioneering article in 2012, has had a major impact on Migration Studies, which traditionally focus on precarious forms of mobility. The concept of migratory “privilege” was initially developed in relation to North-South mobility (Fabbiano et al., 2019), highlighting how postcolonial power asymmetries between nation-states translate into asymmetries of mobility. One striking example of the way in which nationality directly determines inequalities in mobility is the ranking of passports based on the number of countries with visa-free access (Henley Passport Index).

3While the intersection of class positions and nationality leads to a wide variety of privileged migratory experiences, multiple power dynamics add to this initial disparity. The privileged migration explored in this special issue involves individuals for whom crossing borders is facilitated by a dominant position in one or more power relations: nationality or class—sometimes membership of a specific professional group—but also race, gender or sexuality. The gradual recognition of this plurality of social relations invites us to reassess the role of nationality and the possession of a strong passport in the analysis of migratory privilege. Without minimising the significance of these factors, the contributions in this special issue go beyond the North-South framework to examine advantageous migratory positions in a wide range of geographical directions, whether between continents or neighbouring countries, towards the former metropolis or the post-socialist East.

4What impact does this plurality of social relations have on the very notion of privilege in migration? How does it do or undo privilege over the long timeframe of migration? This special issue looks at the multiple power dynamics at play in the context of privileged migration. It aims to examine the resources that enable it, the benefits it brings, the social mobility it fosters, and the domination it reinforces or reconfigures. This objective is linked to a recognition of the importance of the contexts in which people move and settle to an understanding of the construction of dominant positions. This involves, firstly, exploring the possibilities offered by social positions at the point of departure, i.e. the advantages they represent in relation to migration. It also means looking at the way in which migration shapes class positions and gender and/or racial ascriptions, depending on the local context. Migration connects the departure and settlement contexts, where the socio-professional positions held by migrants are not always identical, nor necessarily replicable. The close relationship between migration and social mobility (Bidet, 2018) calls for consideration of the fragility of privilege when transnational movement results in professional downgrading (Vallot, 2020). The empirical study of privileged migration also reveals the dynamics of gender relations, linked to local gender regime contexts, particularly in terms of the degree of assignment to the domestic sphere (Cosquer, 2020). While acknowledging the imperative of “transnationalisation” in the analysis of racial positions (Alloul, 2020), the special issue also focuses on understanding the malleable and contextual nature of race relations.

5This special issue looks at dominant positions characterised by the accumulation of resources, advantages and benefits derived from migration. It also examines more ambivalent migratory experiences, where power relations blend both domination and the experience of minority status. The first article, by Clio Chaveneau, analyses the subjective relationship to the privilege of mobility among “international actors” in occupied Palestine, particularly in the West Bank, and explores the various practical uses of this inequality. Stéphanie Guyon, drawing on a study of judges and prosecutors from the French mainland who have settled in the French overseas territories, shows how this migration experience makes more visible a white status that is typically concealed by its majority nature in metropolitan France. Focusing on the case of Mayotte, Clémentine Lehuger analyses the ways in which a privileged “entre-soi” (self-segregation) is formed and maintained in overseas migration of employees of the French education system. Sofia Aouani follows the trajectories of two women from the Algerian and Moroccan upper classes, exploring the ongoing process of social reproduction and the various ways in which migration to France is used. Marine Duc looks at the paths taken by Greenlandic women studying in Denmark, focusing specifically on women in mixed relationships with a Danish partner. She describes how this mobility enables them to acquire a wide range of resources that help reshape their social position. The special issue concludes with Laure Sizaire’s study of mixed heterosexual couples composed of a French man and a local woman in post-Soviet countries, with a particular focus on how this migration impacts conjugality and masculinities.

6By bringing together studies on a variety of local contexts, geographical trajectories and social positions, this special issue critically examines dominant positions in migration, while stepping back from both the literature on elite migration and that on “middling transnationalism”. The contributions look at the impact of intersecting social relations and their processual dimension on the very notion of privilege in migration, based on a range of empirical cases. First, they underline that the form of mobility and the conditions under which migration takes place are closely linked to social positions at the point of departure, in particular passport (Chaveneau) and class position (Aouani), as well as metropolitan origin in the case of mobility between France and its overseas territories (Guyon, Lehuger). They also look at the way in which gender does and undoes advantageous positions in privileged migration (Aouani, Duc), including by studying masculinities in migration (Sizaire). By showing how these social relations combine, intersect, reinforce each other, or create tensions, these contributions extend the analytical tradition of studying “status contradictions” (Hughes, 1945), in particular by adopting the analytical tools of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989). While these tools were initially developed to study situations of cumulative disadvantage, they have since been applied to the analysis of hegemonic or more ambiguous positions, which can be simultaneously dominated and dominant. This focus on the incongruities of power relations enriches the analysis of domination (Pease, 2010), resisting its reification and essentialisation.

7These articles also break with a static view of privilege—as a social attribute—by situating it within the processual dynamics of social reproduction or downgrading. They look at the practices and strategies that underpin them, by documenting migratory trajectories over a long timeframe (Aouani, Duc). Sofia Aouani’s article shows how early socialisation towards movement to the former metropolis constitutes a family legacy, one whose benefits are uncertain and reversible for women migrating on a long-term basis. The special issue also sheds light on the subjective dimension of social positions in migration, specifically insofar as they can be advantageous. Privilege, which is often downplayed to be more easily defended (Ferber, 2012), raises important questions not only about the materialities of social relations but also how these relations are perceived. Clio Chaveneau describes how the passport privilege enjoyed by foreign nationals in the occupied West Bank is woven into multiple strategies: these “international actors” leverage it in different ways, always taking advantage of it but sometimes trying to restrict it, while the profound inequality it crystallises is a source of tension with the Palestinian population. In a similar vein, Stéphanie Guyon explores the subjective dimension of the migration of judges and prosecutors to the French overseas territories and shows that they use various ways to negotiate their social position, ranging from relativising privilege to expressing egalitarian aspirations and demonstrating local roots. Finally, Clémentine Lehuger underscores how teachers from metropolitan France posted to Mayotte craft narratives to distance themselves from the negative figures of the “coloniser” and the “bounty hunter”.

8The special issue also explores how migration reshapes social positions in various ways, including in terms of race and gender relations. Sofia Aouani highlights the ambivalence of mobility from Algeria and Morocco to France, which draws on transnational social capital but involves exposure to racial discrimination. The contributions by Stéphanie Guyon and Clémentine Lehuger show how mobility between a (former) metropolis and post-colonial territories contributes to constructing a white status closely tied to belonging to the metropolis. This status is sometimes superimposed on an embodiment of the state (Guyon) and manifests in largely segregated sociabilities (Lehuger). The connection between mobility within a post-imperial space and the production of racial boundaries is also examined in the context of return mobility: Marine Duc shows that migration to Denmark tends to “whiten” Greenlandic female students when they return to Greenland. She describes the way in which this racialisation intersects with gender relations, by exploring the case of mixed marriages, which emphasise racial boundaries. Similarly, Laure Sizaire explores the conjugal space as a forum where gender positions in migration are negotiated, but where these positions also shape the effects of migration. Her contribution reveals that the migration of the men studied involves gender mobility, in the sense that it takes the form of a shift from one gender regime to another. Finally, Sofia Aouani shows how the hasty emigration and endured sedentarisation of her interviewees can largely be explained by gender-related constraints. Together, these contributions offer a fresh perspective on traditional approaches to the social mobility/spatial mobility diptych, arguing that social mobility is not limited to socio-professional mobility, but also includes mobility in terms of gender and race relations.

9This special issue makes two key contributions to the study of privileged migration. First, it shows that advantageous positions in privileged migration are always shaped, reinforced or complicated by pluralist social relations. While privilege in migration is often approached from the perspective of holding a Western passport or belonging to the upper classes, it is no less influenced by social relations of race and gender. Second, this special issue demonstrates that the class dimension does not fully explain the effects of migration on social positions. Although social mobility in migration has traditionally been viewed mainly in terms of class mobility, this special issue also explores the way in which geographical mobility affects both gender and racial positions. Because migration brings with it these counter-effects and reshapes class positions, racial ascriptions and gender roles, a closer look at the multiple spaces—and the long timeframes—in which social positions in migration are negotiated and renegotiated demonstrates the processual and interactional nature of this privilege. In other words, this special issue contributes to undoing the static representation of privilege in migration: while it may be linked to the passport one holds, privilege is less an attribute than an exercise, a practice, a mode of distinction and a strategy of domination. More broadly, this special issue contributes to Migration Studies by emphasising that understanding the relations of domination that govern (non-)access to the world also requires an analysis of the movements that face the fewest obstacles.