Privilege, Racialization, and Exclusionary Cosmopolitanism in Transnational Trajectories

Abstract

This chapter introduces exclusionary cosmopolitanism as a theoretical framework for approaching transnational Peruvian identities. Within transnational Peruvian and more specifically limeño spaces cosmopolitan belonging is often shaped by existing hierarchies: some migrants belong, others are denied inclusion by middle and upper- class limeños. The chapter examines racialization and racial hierarchies in Peru, particularly in Lima, and the construction and treatment of indigenous internal migrants as the historically inferior other for middle and upper-class limeños. It brings into the discussion of cosmopolitan belonging how processes of racialization and othering also impact and are reinforced by international migrants, who had previously considered themselves to be part of the unmarked privileged middle and upper- classes.