Introduction: Researching race and migration in a transnational context

This chapter introduces the main theme, theoretical framework, methodology, and structure of the book. It identifies a gap in existing literature on migration studies, which largely concentrates on migration from the global South to the global North. We advocate the importance of integrating race and migration studies to make the racialization experience of Western migrants a visible and much needed topic for critical analysis. We also move beyond the dominant Euro-American paradigm in theorizing race and racism by focusing on the transnational circulation of racial knowledge. We argue that racial formation in East Asia is a transnational and relational process which involves the dynamic intersections between the global expansion of white hegemony and local appropriations and negotiations based on indigenous historical, cultural, and social constructions of group differences and social hierarchies.