Racism, desire, and the politics of immigration

This article examines some of the implications that post-World War II immig ration from the poor countries of the South to the rich industrialised coun tries of the North has for conceptualising 'the state'. I-low should this e ntity be conceptualised when a cohesive political community can no longer b e taken for granted and when the domestic/international divide is itself be coming increasingly blurred? I explore how the phenomenon of neo-racism is implicated in the practices that arise in response to the threat to cohesio n and community that immigration is perceived to pose. In doing so I presen t an alternative way of understanding the state that draws upon the concept of desire as articulated by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. This underst anding moves away from the idea of the state as a tired and concrete entity to conceptualising it as a set of practices. I illustrate the usefulness o f this conceptualisation through an examination of France's responses to po st-World War II immigration.