Book Review: Migration and xenophobia: A three country exploration

• Author: Brendan A. Shanahan
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074021996370
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Date: 01 May 2021
• Subject Matter: Book Review

American Review of Public Administration

2021, Vol. 51(4) 325 –326

© The Author(s) 2021

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Book Review

Despite its relative brevity (108 pages of main text), Kyle

Farmbry’s Migration and Xenophobia explores a truly wide

range of subjects. Broadly, it examines the evolution of ide-

ologies and manifestations of xenophobia across the globe

in the context of changing patterns of historical, contempo-

raneous, and future international migration. Specifically, it

compares, contrasts, and contextualizes popular and insti-

tutional (often xenophobic but also migrant-rights advo-

cacy) responses to immigrant and refugee flows in three

very different nation-states: South Africa, Malta, and the

United States.

Farmbry’s initial chapters offer short histories and theori-

zations laying out his book’s broader themes. Chapter 2, for

instance, provides a brief (though longue durée) history of

disparate and overlapping dogmas and examples of xeno-

phobia, reflecting on “how members of groups” have

“th[ought] about others unlike themselves” at various points

in international history (p. 17). Chapter 3, in turn, conceptu-

alizes and provides a brief history of 20th- and early 21st-

century refugee migration patterns and supranational efforts

(particularly those of the United Nations) to shape interna-

tional norms around refugee admissions and rights.

Farmbry dives into the heart of his text in the next

three—case-study-specific—chapters. Chapter 4 explores

both the deep history underlying and recent context behind

rising xenophobia in South Africa. It argues that pre-

Apartheid legacies, underlying economic challenges, and

growing nationalism have combined to inflame nativism

and anti-immigrant sentiment in contemporary South

Africa. Chapter 5, by contrast, examines how the small

Mediterranean island of Malta has increasingly become a

focal point of refugee crossings and a site of local and

supranational debates over migrants’ rights and incorpora-

tion or exclusion from the polity. It demonstrates that a

strong Maltese sense of national identity and the island’s

recent EU admission have collided to produce conflicting

politics and policies toward migrants. Chapter 6 briefly

summarizes well-known moments in the history of U.S.

immigration law and discusses how recent developments

in the Trump Era, particularly policies targeting unaccom-

panied migrant youths, have both built on and departed

from the nation’s history of immigrant exclusion and inclu-

sion. The conclusion reflects on how states can better com-

bat xenophobia and offer integrative programs in an age of

rising international migration in the early 21st century.

Without question, Migration and Xenophobia’s strongest

interventions emerge from Farmbry’s deeply original juxta-

position of immigration to, xenophobia within, and migra-

tion/integration policies found in South Africa and Malta for

a broad scholarly audience. While U.S.-based scholars some-

times compare American (im)migration policies and anti-

immigrant politics to those of neighboring Canada or large

nation-states in western or central Europe, much rarer are

comparative studies of post-colonial/Apartheid nation-states

such as South Africa or small island countries such as Malta.

This reviewer is aware of no other work that specifically jux-

taposes these three nation-states, let alone a text that com-

pares immigration politics and policies in Malta and South

Africa. Farmbry should be commended for his bold, original,

and productive comparison.

In particular, his comparative approach makes clear that

migration to and xenophobia within South Africa and Malta

have long histories and that those legacies—along with these

countries’ broader national histories of inequality and mar-

ginalization—directly impact immigration and refugee poli-

tics and policies in both nation-states today. For instance,

Farmbry makes the convincing case that racist internal

migration controls within Apartheid-era South Africa, which

“focused on keeping segments of South Africa’s populations

in specific places and minimizing opportunities outside of

prescribed roles in society” (p. 60) continues to shape ten-

sions over immigration and immigrants in the post-Apartheid

era. While lawmakers in the early post-Apartheid period

sometimes promoted the migration of skilled immigrants

and/or blue-collar laborers as a means to boost the nation’s

economy, Farmbry demonstrates how growing numbers of

native-born South African residents—often struggling to

escape low wages and/or impoverished conditions in the

996370ARPXXX10.1177/0275074021996370The American Review of Public AdministrationBook Review

book-review2021

Book Review

Farmbry, Kyle. (2019). Migration and xenophobia: A three country exploration. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 221 pp. $100.00 (hardback).

$39.99 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-4985-5335-3.

Reviewed by: Brendan A. Shanahan , Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0275074021996370