Hidden Geographies: Migration, Intersectionality, and Social Justice in a Global Contemporaneous Space

In June 2020, a group of transnational scholars responded to an invitation to participate in a themed issue on migration and social justice, following the American Association of Geographers statement against discrimination and hate crimes resulting from COVID-19 (May 2020; followed by a 2021 statement against anti-Asian racism and violence) and its statement on Racism and the Death of George Floyd (June 2020). The six articles bring together an exceptionally diverse scholarship on hidden geographies of migration, immigration, and transnational migration; the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, class, nationality, and citizenship in creating systems of oppression and discrimination; and social justice in a global contemporaneous space. This article (1) introduces the context shaping the birth of this Focus section, including the conjuncture of events, embodied effects, and the disciplinary past; (2) discusses its echoing with antiracist and feminist geography scholarship and race and ethnicity scholarship (primarily by women of color), and its creative contribution, as a collection, to connecting the conceptual theme of "hidden geographies" with the epistemological thinking of "contemporaneous geography;" and (3) highlights the analytical tool of intersectionality and summarizes all six articles and their contributions to the Focus section themes as the global "hidden geographies" project continues to empower more.