The mediated politics of place and people: picturing the ‘contested place-making’ of Irish Travellers at Dale Farm

This article discusses meanings of people–place relationships, relating to ethnicity–class–gender intersections. The case examined concerns the ‘contested place-making’ of Irish Travellers at Dale Farm (UK), where the Travellers were eventually evicted from a place they owned. The material consists mainly of online slideshows in the Guardian. Visuals and place share the role of concretizing news, situating them and underlining their truth claims. Hence, news visuals are well suited for discussions of relationships between places and peoples. The study comprises theories of media, place and identity, relating to mobility, minorities and globalization. Methodologically, compositional analysis, discourse-theoretical method and an intersectional approach are combined. The place conflict is rarely understood in terms of justice. Instead, ethnicity–class–gender intersections appear as significant in the imagery, countering certain old stereotypes, but also connecting to discourses of ‘threatening minorities’, and ‘bad mobility’. Manifested through excessive imagery of barricades/fences/walls/gates, ‘identity management’ meets ‘place management’, detaching some identities from some places. The Travellers thus appear as anomalies, separated from others. This is partly connected to the slideshow format, where linguistic elaboration on motifs is very limited, partly to the selection of certain themes and motifs in the slideshows, and partly to the societal politics surrounding the issue.     

The imagined ‘other’ and its shifts: politics and identifications in Turkish Cyprus

This article addresses the puzzling case of shifting identity constructions in northern Cyprus, from ethnic to civic–territorial in 2003 and back to ethnic in 2009. It is argued that these shifts occurred when external factors (EU and Turkey) opened/closed windows of opportunity for internal elites’ reconfigurations. It then explains societal responsiveness to these nation-building changes sustaining that, over time, a process transforming the perception of the ‘other’ took place from below and a civic–territorial identity layer (Cypriotness) developed along the ethnic-Turkish layer. These coexist and fluctuate depending on the given context of choice.     

Genderacing immigrant subjects: ‘anchor babies’ and the politics of birthright citizenship

Birthright citizenship is often a subject of important national debates on immigration. From a historical perspective, the influx of Mexican and Chinese immigrants to the United Stated has elicited politically charged efforts to deny the right of US citizenship to their children. Based on a review of popular discursive frames concerning the politics of birthright citizenship, this essay identifies and critiques the arguments from both ends of the political spectrum. We conclude that, by and large, the substance of their legal and philosophical arguments is old, hackneyed responses from decades ago. However, on many symbolic levels, the current rhetoric is quite uncharacteristically caustic, with a focus on racialized and gendered discourses among nationalist groups. We seek to explain why this is the case. Framed as ‘genderacing immigrant subjects’, this essay examines the politics of naming (or nomenclature) through the construction of the racially gendered referent in public discourse, thereby ascribing socially resonant meanings that naturalize a call for draconian policy measures in order to socially engineer the national body.     

The patterns of ‘care migrantisation’ in South Korea

Over the past couple of decades, researchers have documented a phenomenon called ‘migrantisation of care’, which is patterned by the national regimes of care and migration. By applying the ideas of social reproduction and care–migration intersections to the South Korean case, this paper investigates the interplay of care and migration policies through which migrants get involved for various care roles in different care settings. In the matrix of migration (regime) and care (regime) emerge two intersecting fields in South Korea: co-ethnic labour migrants in paid care work and marriage migrants in unpaid care work. The paper has found a growing demand for migrant care labour to address the care crisis in Korea, but the degree to which care work is migrantised varies significantly between childcare and eldercare as well as between home-based care and institution-based care. The paper not only geographically extends the care–migration intersection frame to an East Asian welfare state but widens its theoretical application to an under-explored pattern of care migrantisation, notably unpaid care provision by family migrants.     

The construction of ‘illiterate’ and ‘literate’ youth: the effects of high-stakes standardized literacy testing

High-stakes standardized literacy testing is not neutral and continues to build upon the legacy of dominant power relations in the state in its ability to sort, select and rank students and ultimately produce and name some youth as illiterate in contrast to an ideal white, male, literate citizen. I trace the effects of high-stakes standardized testing by using the voices of 16 youth who failed the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) to illustrate how the ‘illiterate youth’ revealed to students, schools, and communities by this test is culturally and socially constructed. In an age where multiple literacies are more and more valued, standardized literacy testing acts as a form of social control projected upon the ‘adolescent’ body that has historically been deemed ‘other’ or ‘deficient.’ Just as colonized subjects needed to be ‘civilized,’ so youth now need to acquire a state defined literacy in a competitive and fast paced learning environment. This article helps to demonstrate how power operates on marginalized youth through standardized literacy testing that is being used transnationally.     

‘God,patria and home’: ‘Reproductive politics’ and nationalist (Re)definitions of women in East/Central Europe

Abstract

I argue that through complex processes of social construction of gender, women in East/Central European societies are seen primarily as reproducers of the nation. One effect of such definitions is the enforcement of reproductive policies which amount to the nationalization of female bodies.

After a brief assessment of reproductive policies during the state‐socialist period, an overview of the contemporary debate within the post‐communist universe of discourse, and of the policies enacted by the new East/Central European regimes, I argue that within the framework of the emerging masculinist cultures in East/Central Europe, masculinity becomes increasingly identified with the public domain; in contrast, women are progressively confined within the ‘private’ sphere, identified with holding the primary responsibility for the family. Definitions of femininity along these lines have been influenced by the emergence of a particular form of ‘reproductive politics’ supported by post‐state‐socialist movements stressing the right of the nation to mobilize all of its resources, and thus, to subjugate women for the ‘national good’.     

Northern Ireland 1968–2008. The politics of entrenchment

The aim of this article is to propose and apply a conceptual model to evaluate how national identity, state interests and territory, including both state territory and national homeland, may be interwoven in a particular conflict. The frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in the south Caucasus, the selected case study, appears to defy resolution efforts based on an assessment of self-determination of nations or on territorial integrity of the state. The article begins with the view that one-dimensional conceptions of ‘state’ and ‘nation’ are insufficient for understanding complex relations underlying territorial conflict. It is suggested that a more comprehensive understanding may be obtained and applied toward conflict resolution through a consideration of multiple scales and dimensions of activity in a particular conflict. The article focuses not only on the roles of states and nations, but also considers the meanings of territory and, most importantly, contributing factors to a sufficient capacity to compromise.     

‘They don’t look like children’: child asylum-seekers,the Dubs amendment and the politics of childhood

In October 2016, following a campaign led by Labour Peer Lord Alfred Dubs, the first child asylum-seekers allowed entry to the UK under new legislation (the ‘Dubs amendment’) arrived in England. Their arrival was captured by a heavy media presence, and very quickly doubts were raised by right-wing tabloids and politicians about their age. In this article, I explore the arguments underpinning the Dubs campaign and the media coverage of the children’s arrival as a starting point for interrogating representational practices around children who seek asylum. I illustrate how the campaign was premised on a universal politics of childhood that inadvertently laid down the terms on which these children would be given protection, namely their innocence. The universality of childhood fuels public sympathy for child asylum-seekers, underlies the ‘child first, migrant second’ approach advocated by humanitarian organisations, and it was a key argument in the ‘Dubs amendment’. Yet the campaign highlights how representations of child asylum-seekers rely on codes that operate to identify ‘unchildlike’ children. As I show, in the context of the criminalisation of undocumented migrants‘, childhood is no longer a stable category which guarantees protection, but is subject to scrutiny and suspicion and can, ultimately, be disproved.     

The ‘importance of staying put’: third country nationals’ limited intra-EU mobility rights

The cautious approach of European Legislators towards the integration of non-EU third country nationals (TCNs), mirrored in the provisions of Long-Term Residence Directive 2003/109/EC, has brought about the creation of ‘spatial temporal waiting zones’. Migrants are confined in both place and time before being able to access the (as of yet, very limited) mobility rights conferred upon them by the Directive. Restricted mobility rights for TCNs can seriously impinge on the economic growth of the EU. This paper reveals three ‘faults’ of the current system. First, we show how TCNs already evade ‘temporal borders’ by moving across geographical ones to take up employment before being entitled to do so under the provisions of the Directive. Next, we show how formal integration in one member state (MS), paradoxically, opens the door to another MS and, third, how a second MS fights off these near-EU citizens. Finally, we observe the importance of taking the phenomenon of spatial and temporal waiting zones into account, not only when structuring intra-EU mobility policies for TCNs but also when addressing the issue of the (labour market) integration of recent arrivals: soon they too will become European long-term residents.     

‘The endless winter’: transnational mobilities of skilled snow sport workers

This article takes up Newman and Falcous’ (2012) challenge to move sport migration studies beyond the career-based travels of the sporting elite and to ‘cultivate new accounts of the affects of global sport mobility on the experiences’ of a wide range of people involved in sporting cultures and industries (48). Working at the intersection of sport migration and lifestyle mobilities scholarship, this paper focuses on the seasonal migration experiences of passionate skiers and snowboarders who have dedicated many years to working in ski resorts as instructors, terrain park-crew, and managers. Drawing primarily upon in-depth interviews with six long-term snow sport workers, the author examines the opportunities, constraints and negotiations of those following the winter between the hemispheres for work and leisure, as well as those who have transitioned out of this highly mobile career. She concludes by examining how snow sport participants’ transnational experiences influence their emotional connections to place and understandings of ‘home’ well after their careers in the snow sport industry have come to an end.     

‘Why is our love an issue?’: same-sex marriage and the racial politics of the ordinary

This article analyzes the implicit white racial normativity underpinning the socio-legal struggle for same-sex marriage in Canada. I argue that discursive representations of ‘ordinary lives’ require alignment with terms of neoliberal citizenship – the privacy of property and intimacy – that hold whiteness as the unspoken yet aspirational ideal. As a contestation of heteronormative citizenship, same-sex marriage is not simply a politics of sexuality but also a politics of race.     

‘We can’t let them fail for one more day’: School reform urgency and the politics of reformer-community alliances

This article provides a critical examination of neoliberal urgency in education reform. While critics of neoliberal reform policies have argued that these reforms exclude low-income community participation almost entirely, I argue that in practice this exclusion is not as total or as overt as macro-analyses would suggest. These macro analyses do not explain the complicated alliances that reformers have with some community organizations, nor do they specifically and critically examine the role that urgency plays in determining the value of community voice in school reform decisions. On the ground, elite school reformers forge tenuous alliances with select low-income community groups, while disregarding and marginalizing others. In this article, I posit that ‘urgency,’ a cherished ideal and guiding principle of the neoliberal school reform movement, becomes the mechanism for elite school reformers to distinguish ‘good’ and valuable community allies from ‘backwards’ and ignorant community voices. A critical examination of school reformer narratives in particular reveals that the discourse and practice of school reform urgency both legitimizes and hides a more profound exclusion of low-income African American voices from the school reform process.     

Explorations in ‘Event Ecology’: The Case of the International Gay Games

Mega-events increasingly shape and reinforce the identities and economies of cities and nations. Major sporting events such as the Olympic Games attract enormous interest, consume vast resources and generate substantial material and cultural capital. In what has become a competition of place and identity, an ecology of events can be discerned which highlights the considerable differences that exist between events in terms of their nature and internal objectives and their intersections with the discourses and politics of host cities. Through a study of selected gay and mainstream media coverage of the International Gay Games held in Sydney in 2002, this paper explores the consequences of, and deep contradictions inherent in, an agenda of cosmopolitan advocacy that requires the endorsement of different publics with competing interests. The paper argues that the emphasis on urban sophistication and anticipated economic benefits at the heart of the promotion of the Games to mainstream Sydney were at odds with the identity building and sexual political advocacy agenda of the gay and lesbian community. Through this analysis, the paper contributes to academic understanding of the contemporary event ecology and its wider significance for social identities, cultural formations and political interventions.     

Refugees,migrants, neither,both: categorical fetishism and the politics of bounding in Europe’s ‘migration crisis’

The use of the categories ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ to differentiate between those on the move and the legitimacy, or otherwise, of their claims to international protection has featured strongly during Europe’s ‘migration crisis’ and has been used to justify policies of exclusion and containment. Drawing on interviews with 215 people who crossed the Mediterranean to Greece in 2015, our paper challenges this ‘categorical fetishism’, arguing that the dominant categories fail to capture adequately the complex relationship between political, social and economic drivers of migration or their shifting significance for individuals over time and space. As such it builds upon a substantial body of academic literature demonstrating a disjuncture between conceptual and policy categories and the lived experiences of those on the move. However, the paper is also critical of efforts to foreground or privilege ‘refugees’ over ‘migrants’ arguing that this reinforces rather than challenges the dichotomy’s faulty foundations. Rather those concerned about the use of categories to marginalise and exclude should explicitly engage with the politics of bounding, that is to say, the process by which categories are constructed, the purpose they serve and their consequences, in order to denaturalise their use as a mechanism to distinguish, divide and discriminate.