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- Author: Lucy Michael x
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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.
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.
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.
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.