Making Sense of One Another while Crossing Borders: Social Cognition and Migration Politics

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Susan T. Fiske,Ilka Vari-Lavoisier
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162211061265

ANNALS, AAPSS, 697, September 2021 7

DOI: 10.1177/00027162211061265

Making Sense

of One Another

while Crossing

Borders: Social

Cognition and

Migration

Politics

By

ILKA VARI-LAVOISIER

and

SUSAN T. FISKE

1061265ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYMAKING SENSE OF ONE ANOTHER WHILE CROSSING BORDERS

research-article2021

Keywords: social psychology; migration studies;

mobility; interdisciplinarity; mixed method

research

New intellectual approaches—ideas cross-

ing disciplinary borders—can inform our

understanding of people crossing borders—

migration-based social diversity—and the

design of public policies in diverse societies.

Contemporary mobility has implications that

are not only complex, but also profound, deeply

affecting those who move and those who do not

move. Managing migration humanely and

effectively demands the full range of social sci-

ences, to locate the levers for constructive

interventions. Contemporary societies face a

range of challenges—for example, promoting

social cohesion in diverse settings, adjudicating

asylum claims, or providing language training

to immigrants. Insights gathered by psycholo-

gists and sociologists describe how migrants

and hosts make sense of each other and the

social-political-economic picture. For example,

if immigrants are dehumanized as animal

hordes at the border, then individuating them

Ilka Vari-Lavoisier is a researcher on the PLAN project,

led by Virginie Guiraudon (Sciences Po) and in collabo-

ration with Jacqueline Broadhead (University of

Oxford). As a research affiliate in the Department of

Anthropology and associate member of the Department

of Sociology at Oxford, she investigates the cognition

and migration nexus, with a focus on social remittances

and forecasting.

Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology

and a professor of public affairs at Princeton University.

Fiske, who is an AAPSS Fellow, wrote the field-

founding Social Cognition (with Shelley E. Taylor;

󰅾Addison-Wesley Publishing 1984), winner of the 2020

BBVA Frontiers of Science Award. Her stereotype

content model focuses on groups’ perceived warmth

and competence predicting distinct discrimination.

Correspondence: sfiske@princeton.edu