By: Savanna Tara Schmitz
Savanna T. Schmitz is an M.A. student of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Her research interests are decolonial critiques, conflict and peace research, and feminist topics. Besides her studies, she has worked in investigative and financial journalism.
Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
The question of who narrates, who shapes the global dialogue in which we live on this earth is as old as humanity itself. Especially with the discourse of decolonization and the rise of right-wing extremist governments in the 21st century, it becomes crucial to examine the categories we use to describe people and places, such as “Global South,” “West,” “migrant,” or “expat.” These terms are not neutral; they are socially constructed and carry historical, political, and racial assumptions that must be critically reflected upon. Colonization has destroyed so much – cultures, homes, families – and its effects continue to shape our world today. If we want to build a more just world, we must think critically about fairness, mobility and new geopolitics deeply from the roots, especially when it comes to access to resources. Questioning unjust structures that shape migration policies may be one step towards a change uncovering injustice.
Migrant - Expat? ¹
A central problem in news coverage and in public debates about migration lies in the different images and assumptions people hold about people who move across borders. In comparison, Europeans have been able to move around the world with relative ease. Their mobility is often publically framed as “intellectual, cosmopolitan, and desirable.” By contrast, people moving from countries of the so-called “Global South” and arriving in Europe are frequently facing situations where they are regarded as “second-class humans”, and treated with suspicion.
This cultural arrogance is not new. These hierarchical and racialized ideas of mobility are deeply rooted in colonial histories. This colonial legacy becomes visible in terminology. We talk about people moving across borders and looking for jobs abroad either as “economic migrants” or as “expats.” Terms like “Global South” or “migrant” are constructed and carry assumptions that must be critically examined. What lies behind these distinctions, and what exactly must we examine critically?
As the Theoretical Linguist Chi Luu explains,
“Migrant and expatriate both describe people who have moved from one country to another, but tellingly, an expat is unlikely to be called a migrant worker, even though expats are, after all, migrants who work in a foreign country. There’s clearly a class-based judgement here in the way many choose to apply these terms. An expat is more likely to be someone who has resettled while still retaining the means and the freedom to choose to return to their home country, and with that kind of agency, is perceived as being more in control, more of an individual, somehow more human. Meanwhile, the terms migrant and migrant worker, ostensibly neutral in their definitions, have already acquired a much less positive nuance in practice, bringing with them stereotypes of low-income labor taking away local jobs and the flow of indistinguishable strangers from some unfamiliar place who may not share the same values.”
The difference is not linguistic. When we look deeper it is social and political. So when the term “expat” is applied mainly to people who move with financial security, professional opportunities, and the freedom to return home at any time, they are perceived as autonomous individuals whose mobility is a sign of success.
The terms “migrant” or “migrant worker,” - though they appear formally neutral, are linked in “Western” societies with stereotypes of poverty, low-skilled labour, and cultural otherness. This reveals a class – and race-based judgement: some forms of mobility are celebrated, others are problematized. Stereotypes like this are socially constructed, often racialized, and do not reflect the inherent humanity or individual worth of the people who got labeled.
To claim that expats are seen as more valuable than migrants is not only absurd but dehumanizing. No culture or country should have the right to claim superiority over another. In genuine intercultural encounters, the focus and questions should be: what we can learn from one another in the pursuit of a more peaceful and just world ?
Colonialism, however, produced the opposite. European settlers and administrators benefited from their privileged status abroad, often ignoring or exploiting the populations whose lands they occupied. The linguistic distinction between “expat” and “migrant” thus mirrors ongoing colonial logics: it reflects who is welcomed as a “global citizen” and who is perceived as a threat or a burden.
In our seminars of the DiaMiGo project, readings showed that migration and integration are never neutral social processes. They are shaped by national, racialized, and gendered ideas of who belongs and who does not (Kontos 2014: 125). In her work about restrictive Integration policies in the case of Germany, Kontos describes how this discourse constructs images of the “dangerous” or “problematic” migrant and how political actors use these narratives to justify restrictive integration measures. Right-wing politicians build on these narratives by portraying migrants as inferior in order to gain political support.
Importantly, the power difference between expat and migrant is not new. It reaches back to the colonial era, when European merchants, administrators, and settlers lived abroad while maintaining and benefiting from racialized structures of domination. The distinction is not only about who is more in control, as Luu (2015) mentioned. Furthermore, it is embedded in imagined histories of “white supremacy” and in unequal global mobility regimes.
Although Western “expats” may experience feelings of loss, fear, exclusion, or not belonging, emotions also familiar to migrants, the structural conditions shaping their mobility are profoundly different. The privileges attached to “whiteness”, European citizenship, and anticipated economic power ensure that their hardships are not comparable to the far more difficult systemic barriers faced by migrants from the Global South.
In one dimension some forms of migration come with certain legal, political, or racial privileges. For example, “whiteness,” - or passport privileges. People, - who move, for example, from the “Global South”, - face more significant structural barriers coming to Europe. These differences are multilayered, and individual contexts matter a lot.
At the same time, despite these unequal conditions based on unequal power structures, certain experiences in the context of leaving one Country and moving to another Country can be shared: feelings of loss, fear, exclusion, or not belonging are common to many people with migration backgrounds, regardless of their structures of privilege. The structural inequalities and the emotional parallels can coexist together.
The Historical Case of Italian Migration to Egypt
A historical illustration of how mobility was shaped can be found in the migration of Italian labourers to Egypt in the 18th /19th century. This must be understood within the broader context of colonial labour mobilization and global economic inequalities.
Italians were one of the foreign communities in Egypt beside Greeks, Maltese, Cypriots, Jews and Levantines, facilitated by the modernizing policies of Egyptian Politics in the 19th Century and the expansion of European influence in the Middle East. (Gorman, 2017: 138). One reason for Italian migration to Egypt was the political instability in Italy at the end of the 19th Century. Another reason was the Economic opportunities in Egypt - large modernization projects, under Muhammad ‘Ali and Isma‘il, - like the expansion of irrigation systems, the construction of a new railway network, and the building of the Suez Canal. (Gorman, 2017: 141)
The History of the Italian-Egyptian migration is complex. During the First and Second World War period, the Italian community in Egypt became a strategic instrument of fascist Italy’s ambitions. Although Italy had no territorial control over Egypt, the regime used its expatriates, through schools, associations, and consular networks, to project political influence from a distance. This made the Italian diaspora in Egypt not a formal colony, but a population abroad that the regime sought to mould, mobilize, and display as part of an expanded imperial sphere. Here we can see how European Imperialist politics tried to use the privileged positions of expatriates as an arm of Italy’s fascist regime. (Viscomi: 343)
At the same time, Mussolini, the Italian Fascist Prime minister, tried to weaken the British dominance in Egypt by subtly encouraging Egyptian anti-colonial movements (as the British Empire was the biggest ruling Colony in Egypt). Yet this strategy contained a deep paradox. Through strategic decolonization, Italy helped to dismantle the very political and legal conditions that had long allowed Italians to live in Egypt. As Egyptian nationalism intensified, the Italians community’s position became more and more precarious (Viscomi: 343). This case shows how colonial structures and Europeans settlers can become profiteers, violators, tools, and also victims of imperial politics.
Colonial Courts
The Influence of Expatriate Communities
To give an example, - of how much structural influence imperialist politics can have, consider Italian Law in Egypt Courts. The establishment of the Mixed Courts (1876) and subsequent National Codes (1883) in Egypt provides a striking example of how expatriate communities could legally and institutionally benefit from colonial- and semi-colonial structures without representing a formal colonial power themselves.
According to Piccinelli (2018), the Mixed Courts were created to resolve the inequities of the Capitulations system, whereby foreign nationals – including Italians – benefited from extraterritorial privileges under their consular jurisdictions. Here we need to question how it can happen, that European settlers just come to another Country and turn the Laws in their favour, for their own profit? By integrating judges from European powers, including Italy, into these courts, the Egyptian legal system institutionalized European influence while simultaneously attempting to modernize its judiciary. (Piccinelli 2018: 2f.)
Italian jurists such as G. Moriondo actively participated in drafting civil and commercial codes, shaping legal frameworks that governed both Egyptians and foreigners. For Italian expatriates, this participation had direct practical consequences: they were able to navigate a legal environment favourable to their economic and professional interests. In other words, their European identity and expertise provided privileged access to a hybrid legal system, allowing them to consolidate social and economic advantages in a society undergoing legal and political transformations. (Piccinelli 2018: 5)
From a postcolonial perspective, this example reveals a layered and ambivalent dynamic:
- Indirect colonial benefit without territorial control: Italy exerted influence over Egyptian legal structures through its diaspora, projecting power via expertise rather than military or formal colonial rule.
- Structural inequality embedded in law: Through Mixed Courts, while “modernizing” the judiciary, privileged Europeans cemented an asymmetrical system in which expatriates had both symbolic and material advantages.
- Diaspora as a tool of empire: Italian expatriates were simultaneously beneficiaries and instruments of Italy’s soft power, illustrating how Italian communities could operate within colonial hierarchies to their advantage.
- Intersection of mobility, expertise, and legal pluralism: the Italian presence exemplifies how European minorities could leverage mobility, professional knowledge, and codified law to secure their interests in a formally independent but colonial context.
Thus, Piccinelli’s (2018) account demonstrates that Italian expatriates in Egypt shaped legal institutions in ways that reinforced both their socio-economic security and the broader Euro-Mediterranean legal order. This makes the Mixed Courts a paradigmatic case of how diaspora communities could thrive within the asymmetries of imperial influence, highlighting the complex entanglement of law, power, and expatriate agency in colonial and semi-colonial settings.
These historical hierarchies of movement persist in contemporary understandings of mobility. European citizens working in Africa, Asia or Latin America continue to be portrayed as “cosmopolitan professionals,” while people from “the Global South” working in Europe are framed as “economic migrants,” often subject to suspicion, particularly strict bureaucracy, and control – a distinction rooted in politics about dividing power and race.
Questioning the status-quo
How do we break these stereotypes, and how do we overcome excessively simplistic terminologies? First of all, I think we need to ask more questions: From which position of privilege does someone move through the world? Was the person forced to migrate? Forced by political or economic reasons? Or did they move of their own free will? Does someone have access to apply for an official visa to move across the world, or are they excluded from legal forms of migration? And once they have migrated to a new country, do they have economic or political advantages to adapt to a new system, officially or unofficially?
Meanwhile, we also need to question who decides what is legal? While migration from the “Global South” is often criminalized, this public discourse relies on colonial histories. When European law imperialized international law structures, isn’t then a decolonization of law structures needed?
In this paper, this situation been illustrated by the case of Egypt. And when looking back at the case of Italians in Egypt, we can further ask: why was there a widespread belief that the world should develop according to European standards? And why and how is Europe setting these standards? Overall, we need to critically reflect on the presumed centrality of Europe in global narratives.
Author’s Bio:
Savanna T. Schmitz is an M.A. student of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Her research interests are decolonial critiques, conflict and peace research, and feminist topics. Besides her studies, she has worked in investigative and financial journalism.
Footnote:
1: When we use terminologies such as “Global South,” “West”, “migrant,” or “expat,” there is a risk of oversimplification, which needs to be questioned. At the same time, it is not sufficient to adopt a mainly universalist perspective, as with using the words “human” or “citizen”, because doing so can overlook existing privileges and structural inequalities, for example passport inequalities. There is a tension between categorizing too quickly and overlooking the patterns of power that shape global movement. And it is important to ask: who made these categories of descriptions? And whom do they serve? At the same time, analyzing migration, displacement, or exile – topics often charged with trauma, loss, and emotion – , it is very important to be aware of the individual human experiences and the humanity inherent in these processes. Terminologies are not fixed, but socially constructed and subject to critical reflection.
References
Gorman, A. & S. Kasbarian. (2015) Diasporas of the Modern Middle East: Contextualising Community, in Diasporas of the Modern Middle East. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 138–170.
Kontos, M. (2014) Restrictive Integration Policies and the Construction of the Migrant as ‘Unwilling to Integrate’: The Case of Germany. In: Anthias, F., Kontos, M. und Morokvasic-Müller, M. (eds.) Contesting Integration, Engendering Migration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125–142.
Luu, C. (2015) Migrants, Refugees, and Expats: How Humanity Comes in Waves. JSTOR Daily, 15 September. Available at: https://daily.jstor.org/language-of-migrants-refugees-expats/ (Accessed: 27 November 2025).
Piccinelli, G.M. (2018) Italy in Egypt and Historical Influences on Egyptian Codification. The Italian Law Journal, 4(1).
Viscomi, J.J. (2019) Mediterranean Futures: Historical Time and the Departure of Italians from Egypt, 1919–1937. The Journal of Modern History, 91(2), pp.341–379.
