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3995 Migrations.qxd:text 5/8/13 11:39 Page 132 7 African migrants in Ireland: the negotiation of belonging and family life Liam Coakley Introduction The migration flows that transformed Ireland from a country of emigrants to an attractive site of immigration between 1997 and 2007 have recently been reversed. As a consequence, Ireland is again best seen as a peripheral emigrant nursery in the globalized world economy, with Irish population patterns once again moulded more significantly by the outflow of Irish-born people than by any equivalent inflow of
During the past fifteen years, many thousands of people have passed through the Irish asylum system, especially migrants from Africa. Public debates in Ireland, in common with other EU Member States, have been framed by ‘integration’ discourse. However, not enough is known about lived experiences of integration, especially among former asylum seekers and their families. This book builds on several years of in-depth ethnographic research to provide a striking portrait of the integration experiences of African migrants in Dundalk, Drogheda and Dublin. The book draws on contemporary anthropological theory to explore labour integration, civic and political participation, religion, education and youth identity. The stories of several key research participants are threaded through the book. The book draws out the rich voices of African migrants who struggle in their everyday lives to overcome racism and exclusion and, yet, are producing new cultural formations and generating reasons for societal hope. Set against the backdrop of a severe economic crisis and the ever-present hand of neo-liberal policies, this book is about everyday struggles and new visions for the future.
’, Inside Story , 12 July , https://insidestory.org.au/the-remarkable-deeds-of-captain-rackete/ (accessed 28 July 2020). Neumann , K. (forthcoming), ‘ Rights-Bearing Migrants and the Rightfulness of Their Rescue: The Emergence of a “New Model of Humanitarian Engagement” at Europe’s Borders ’, in Fiori , J. , Espada , F. , Rigon , A. , Taithe , B. and Zakaria , R. (eds), Amidst the Debris: Humanitarianism and the End of Liberal Order ( London : Hurst ). Nossiter , A. ( 2016 ), ‘ A French Underground Railroad, Moving African Migrants ’, The
approach, experience and navigate their post-playing-career trajectories and livelihoods. Thus, after situating our discussion within the extant literature on career transitions in sport, this chapter interrogates how former players continue to negotiate an envisaged social mobility through the professional game and evaluates how they come to terms with their career achievements and failures. This enables us to conceptualise African migrant footballers’ quest for social mobility as an ongoing transnational process that occurs throughout their life course, from the
, socio-cultural and sporting challenges. This illustrates how African migrant players act and are acted upon within the social infrastructure of the football industry in these settings. In detailing players’ experiences in new socio-cultural, political and economic environments, we show how the structural conditions and actors they encounter relegate them to subordinate positions of power and expose them to racialisation and racism. Our analyses here, and particularly with reference to the career courses of John, Demba and Jordan, also illustrate that despite what is
Africans have long graced football fields around the world. The success of icons such as Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba and Mohamed Salah has fuelled the migratory projects of countless male youth across the African continent who dream of following in their footsteps. Using over a decade of ethnographic research, African Football Migration captures the historical, geographical and regulatory features of this migratory process. The book uncovers and traces the myriad actors, networks and institutions that impact the ability of children and youth across the continent to realise social mobility through football’s global production network. This sheds critical light on how young people are trying to negotiate contemporary barriers to social becoming erected by neoliberal capitalism. It also generates original interdisciplinary perspectives on the complex interplay between structural forces and human agency as young players navigate an industry rife with commercial speculation. A select few are fortunate enough to reach the elite levels of the game and build a successful career overseas. Significantly, the book vividly illustrates how for the vast majority, the outcome of ‘trying their luck’ through football is involuntary immobility in post-colonial Africa. These findings are complemented by rare empirical insights from transnational African migrants at the margins of the global football industry and those navigating precarious post-playing-career lives. In unpacking these issues, African Football Migration offers fresh perspectives on the transnational strategies deployed by youth and young men striving to improve their life chances, and the role that mobility – imagined and enacted – plays in these struggles.
With race as a central theme, this book presents racial stratification as the underlying system which accounts for the difference in outcomes of Whites and Blacks in the labour market. Critical race theory (CRT) is employed to discuss the operation, research, maintenance and impact of racial stratification. The power of this book is the innovative use of a stratification framework to expose the pervasiveness of racial inequality in the labour market. It teaches readers how to use CRT to investigate the racial hierarchy and it provides a replicable framework to identify the racial order based on insight from the Irish case. There is a four-stage framework in the book which helps readers understand how migrants navigate the labour market from the point of migration to labour participation. The book also highlights minority agency and how migrants respond to their marginality. The examples of how social acceptance can be applied in managing difference in the workplace are an added bonus for those interested in diversity and inclusion. This book is the first of its kind in Ireland and across Europe to present inequality, racism and discrimination in the labour market from a racial stratification perspective. While this book is based on Irish data, the CRT theoretical approach, as well as its insight into migrant perspectives, poses a strong appeal to scholars of sociology, social justice, politics, intercultural communication and economics with interest in race and ethnicity, critical whiteness and migration. It is a timely contribution to CRT which offers scholars a method to conduct empirical study of racial stratification across different countries bypassing the over-reliance on secondary data. It will also appeal to countries and scholars examining causal racism and how it shapes racial inequality.
than the envisaged, experience is fraught with difficulties. Adjusting to and being accepted in new locales that are perceived as culturally, socially and climatically different from those from which migrant players departed bring a range of challenges. Of particular significance here is the fact that African migrant players’ professional and personal lives, particularly in Europe, are frequently tainted by racialisation and racism. In outlining how they respond to this, we showed how they engage in processes of ‘self-charismatisation’. This involves migrant players
migration, and what are the outcomes? How do African players experience and navigate transnational moves and professional careers ‘outside’, including irregular football-related migration? What are the post-playing-career trajectories of former African migrant football players and how do they experience their lives after retirement? Once we have outlined the undulations of Lamptey's personal biography, we reflect on how his experiences as a young footballer in Ghana, his career
2012 and 2015 decisions to return African migrants to their country of origin or to third countries. Against this backdrop, this chapter focuses on the legitimisation of these technologies of blocking and exclusion in the Israeli political discourse. More specifically, through a discourse analysis of political actors’ public speeches and parliamentary debates, I seek to answer the following questions