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This chapter focuses on immigrants’ experience of racism and racially motivated anti-social behaviour in social housing in the Republic of Ireland. In recent years the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) has identified a notable increase in the number of reports of individuals and families experiencing racial harassment in their homes or in the vicinity compared with previous years. Almost half (48 per cent) of the incidents reported in housing took place in social housing. The findings of the quantitative and qualitative analysis of data gathered from the ICI’s Racist Incidents Support and Referral Service during 2013 and 2014 are presented in order to paint a detailed picture of the victims’ experiences of racism in social housing in Ireland. The second part of the chapter presents the findings of a case study analysing the policy and practice of one local authority where there has been a response to complaints of racism and an absence of data collection. The chapter demonstrates that the exclusion immigrants suffer is twofold: the immediate impact of harassment, and the insufficient institutional responses to it.
This chapter examines, from a Nigerian-Irish perspective, difficulties encountered by hyphenated citizens in their efforts to become accepted as belonging to the Irish nation. It examines rules and processes that remind immigrants who have become naturalised Irish citizens that they are still outsiders. The chapter also examines difficulties faced by hyphenated citizens in asserting their own ethnic identities. Hyphenated citizens are positioned in a precarious situation. One longs to be accepted into both one’s ‘home’ and host society, only to be met with questions of identity that conflict the mind. One’s longing to belong can never be satisfied, because for example, one is neither Irish, nor Nigerian, enough. One carefully threads along the blurred concept of ‘home’, unable to determine where ‘home’ is. Not at one’s own will of course, but because one’s self-assertion to a particular identity is met with enquiry from those who deem that identity theirs: ‘are you one of us?’ Drawing on the concept of ‘super-citizens’, the chapter interrogates the ways in which over-assimilation can facilitate both exclusion from one’s ‘home’ society and racism by the majority, undermining the cultural and ontological facilitators of integration.
International research has highlighted the crucial role of schools in the integration of children. Schools reflect and transmit dominant cultural norms both explicitly through the curriculum and implicitly. In this context immigrant students are found to often occupy an ambiguous position within the Irish educational system, whether as ‘outsiders’ or as the children of comparatively highly educated parents in possession of the kinds of social and cultural capital valued by the school system. The ‘mismatch’, or cultural distance, between home and school cultures may vary across nationalities or linguistic groups as well as by social class. The chapter specifically focuses on factors that determine whether or not immigrants are seen as ‘outsiders’, such as English-language fluency, country of origin, immigrant status, location, and so on. It evidences how some groups of young people are particularly marginalised and experience exclusion in the Irish education system and beyond.
Immigrants as Outsiders in the Two Irelands examines how a wide range of
immigrant groups who settled in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland
from the 1990s are faring today. It asks to what extent might different
immigrant communities be understood as outsiders in both
jurisdictions.
Immigrants as Outsiders in the Two Irelands brings together
research on a wide range of immigrant communities. The book provides a sharp
contemporary account of integration that situates migrants’ diverse experiences
of exclusion within a detailed overall picture of the range of ways in which
they have succeeded socially, economically and politically in building their
lives in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Chapters include analyses of the specific
experiences of Polish, Filipino, Muslim, African, Roma, refugee and asylum
seeker populations and of the experiences of children, as well as analyses of
the impacts of education, health, employment, housing, immigration law, asylum
policy, the media and the contemporary politics of borders and migration on
successful integration.
Immigrants as Outsiders in the Two Irelands offers
a unique cross-border perspective on migrants on the island of Ireland today
which situates the Irish experience within the wider politics of migration
control, Brexit and integration policy. This book is a significant and timely
analysis suitable for students of migration at any level in a wide range of
social science disciplines.
Legislation and state policies aimed at addressing racism have evolved differently in the two Irelands. In the Republic both grew out of anti-racist activism concerned since the 1980s with anti-Traveller prejudice and, as immigration rose, out of NGO pressure upon the Irish state to address its responsibilities under the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In Northern Ireland, legislative and institutional responses to racism were informed by UK practices, particularly as NGO advocates of anti-racism were influenced by mainland UK norms and debates. However, responses were later and weaker than elsewhere in the UK as gridlock in Northern Irish politics imposed limits on progressive social policy. This chapter traces the institutional failures to respond adequately to experiences of racism in both jurisdictions, the effectiveness of civil society responses to racism, and the leverage of international accountability to make progress. The chapter draws particular attention to the shape and strength of the NGO sector and its ability to effect change in the face of institutional resistance, as well as the impact of ‘hate crime’ frameworks.
Immigrants as Outsiders in the Two Irelands offers contributions which speak to the full range of factors shaping new and available pathways to integration, from the context into which immigrants arrive, the characteristics of immigrant groups affecting their emigration and immigration, the biases and structural barriers they encounter in the host society, and the multiple ways in which they seek to adapt to and change the institutions which facilitate integration. Using the theory of segmented assimilation to frame these contributions, we establish a framework through which we invite our readers to view the successes and adaptations of the migrants represented here as well as the structural powerlessness with which many of them, but not all, are faced. We note the limited choices that attend ‘outsider’ status, and the impact of these economically, politically and culturally, and the ways in which combinations of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ positions affect integration, the ability of migrants (and children of migrants) to thrive, and their future orientations to the opportunities available on the island of Ireland.
This chapter examines Filipino migration to Ireland through the lens of the care industry, informed by the experiences of migrants in a range of occupations and with varied legal statuses. It draws on semi-structured interviews with migrant domestic and care workers, observations of the Domestic Workers Action Group and the work conducted by the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland in this sector. Filipinos in Ireland have often been heralded as an example of successful integration, the example of those in the nursing profession often being cited. This assumption obscures the reality of a large number of Filipinos, working as domestic workers, childminders, cleaners and carers; they often find themselves trapped in the labour market, unable to progress as a consequence of discrimination and often exposed to the exploitation and isolation of low-paid caring occupations. Exclusionary labour migration and family reunification policies have resulted in many remaining undocumented in the state, adding another layer of vulnerability to many of them. This chapter also explores the coping strategies found by the community to overcome some of these structural barriers: these range from community-led initiatives to mechanisms to circumvent discrimination and control.
Opinion columns and pseudo-scientific articles exploring immigration and integration are now the primary channels for overt racism in the Irish media, and their proliferation prompts a necessary exploration of their established form and growing influence. A range of columnists regularly vilify Muslims, Roma and Travellers, particularly drawing on ideas of barbarism, cultural genocide and population control, and defiantly testing the legal limits of incitement to hatred. Constructions of Irish culture as monolithic in the face of an immigration regime which imports failed multiculturalism and racism necessarily position migrants as continuing outsiders and the creators of their own exclusion. Clear connections can be made between racist discourses in Irish media and violence against migrants and ethnic minorities. This chapter explores how Irish media outlets are facilitating and promoting the normalisation of racist discourses, and the implications of this for the construction of debates which take seriously the challenges of integration in practice and in the context of growing anti-immigrant racism.
Polish people currently form the largest ethnic minority in Northern Ireland. Sectarian divides within Northern Irish society have affected how Poles have felt included and excluded in local communities. The focus of this chapter is on perceptions of inclusion and exclusion among Polish migrants in Belfast. It critically examines migrants’ constructions of space in Belfast, which is a city entrenched with social divisions, along lines of religion, ethnicity and class. The chapter draws on longitudinal interviews with fifteen Poles who have lived in Belfast for a decade in Protestant, Catholic and mixed areas of the city. Particular attention is paid to how the Polish migrants make sense of spaces ‘in between’, which include streets, alleyways, sidewalks, bus stops, parks and open spaces. The chapter sheds light on the everyday experiences of exclusion and inclusion and how the perceptions of Polish settlers have shifted over time. It also addresses the reactions of interviewees to changes in social and political attitudes in the UK in the wake of the Brexit vote.
This chapter examines the extent to which Roma have their human rights realised in Ireland from an intersectional perspective. It examines how the operations, interactions and patterns of subordination, including racism and discrimination based on gender, ethnicity and migrant status, are embedded in institutions, legislation and policy, resulting in the exclusion and marginalisation of Roma in Ireland. Using data from the national needs assessment of Roma in Ireland, the experiences of discrimination and exclusion that Roma face across services and in public spaces are discussed, with a particular focus on Roma women. The chapter argues that ‘neutral’ policies combined with a legacy of institutional racism across Europe place many Roma in vulnerable situations. A narrow focus on formal equality and a narrative that ‘equal treatment is synonymous with the same treatment’ is used to legitimise policies that operate to exclude many Roma. Roma are pitched as the ‘problem’ and blamed for the exclusion they face, which is used to fuel further negative stereotypes about the community. Finally this chapter looks at the impact and consequences of institutional racism and exclusion, and Roma responses to this exclusion. It argues that it is crucial to acknowledge systematic structural inequalities and to institutionalise substantive equality to progress Roma rights in Ireland.