Beyond Immediate Protection: Gender, Race, and the Reception of Displaced Ukrainians in Germany and the United States

Abstract The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted major policy responses in both Germany and the USA. Both states immediately activated, even though temporary, protection schemes that allowed displaced Ukrainians swift and comparatively safe admission, while also instigating debates about preferential treatment due to Ukrainians’ perceived Europeanness or Whiteness. This article therefore employs an intersectional framework to analyze how the intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, and class shapes the admission and adaptation of displaced Ukrainians in the USA and Germany. First, we show how the shift toward temporary protection schemes in forced migration governance reflects gendered and racialized logics that privilege some forced migrants while marginalizing others, situating the reception of Ukrainians within a longer history of selective deservingness in both nations. Second, we argue that displaced Ukrainians integrate into highly racialized/ethnicized and gendered host societies. Accordingly, the dynamic interplay between migrants’ social locations and the host society’s hierarchical orders produces differentiated outcomes and gradations of inclusion or exclusion, even for and within seemingly privileged groups. In so doing, the article contributes to the growing body of scholarship underscoring the importance of applying intersectionality to the study of forced migration governance.