Welcome to a migration seminar titled Hypervisibility, Invisibility, and the Historico-Racial Schema: Rethinking Anti-Asian Racism in Europe.

Speaker

Hyunjung Lee, PhD candidate in the IGRA graduate programme at the Universität Leipzig.

Abstract

Anti-Asian racism (AAR) in Europe remains structurally and socially underacknowledged, despite its intensification in recent years. This talk interrogates the epistemic and structural neglect of AAR through a Fanonian lens, emphasizing the significance of racialized subjectivity in shaping both perception recognition. Drawing on empirical data from the Asian Voices Europe (2024) report, I argue that AAR is not only maintained through structural exclusions, but also through social schemas that racialize Asian bodies within a historico-racial framework. As theorized by Fanon, this schema imposes a pre-scripted identity onto the racialized subject, shaping interactions through the White gaze and producing a dual condition of hypervisibility and invisibility. This paradox manifests in public narratives that cast Asians as perpetual foreigners or cultural threats, while simultaneously erasing their voices and lived experiences from anti-racist discourse and policy. The talk explores how these dynamics are reproduced in both everyday interactions and institutional responses, and how they intersect with broader legacies of colonial knowledge production. By critically analyzing these perceptual and discursive mechanisms, I argue for the necessity of a decolonial and intersectional framework that moves beyond liberal paradigms of diversity and inclusion.

Attendance

This is a hybrid seminar, you are welcome to connect via Zoom or join us at MIM seminar room, floor 9, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1. To attend on campus, please gather by the reception area at 13.05.
If you have any questions, send an email to mim@mau.se.

Zoom

Link will be available closer to the seminar date.

Other upcoming seminars at MIM

Contact