The Race-Migration Nexus: The Impact of Exclusionary Legislation on the Lived Realities of Blacks and People of Colour Coming to Berlin from Ukraine

Drawing on 26 interviews and ethnography among third-country nationals who have come to Berlin from Ukraine, this study demonstrates how exclusionary social policies in Germany have impacted on the everyday realities of blacks and people of colour, that is, third-country nationals fleeing the war in Ukraine. While there has been much discussion of exclusionary social policies, border regimes and discriminatory actions in scholarship regarding refugees from working-class backgrounds, there has been only limited discussion of the impact of discriminatory legislative policies towards displaced third-country nationals, mainly individuals from the global South who have come to settle in metropolitan regions in the North. The study shows that the nexus between race and immigration must be understood through the lens of the selective adoption of EU legislation and the resulting experience of housing precarity encountered by refugees from the global South in urban spaces such as Berlin.