Speaking with one voice? The European Union's global approach to migration and mobility and the limits of international migration cooperation

ABSTRACT

Migration is comparatively weakly regulated at the international level. States are reluctant to cede sovereignty over international migration and negotiations between rich destination countries in the north and sending countries in the south must overcome asymmetries of interests. For this reason, issue-linkage is typically required to achieve north–south cooperation. This paper examines the European Union's (EU) Global Approach to Migration and Mobility as a framework for international migration cooperation. The paper argues that institutional complexity and political dynamics internal to the EU limit its capacity to reach agreement with third countries. Three internal factors are examined: contrasting approaches of the Commission and Council to the external dimension; diversity of member states’ interests in migration policy; and the different policy agendas of the European agencies. These factors result in an approach to external migration relations that is limited in scope and characterised by variable participation. Despite its apparent potential to leverage agreements from third countries, the EU emerges as an unpromising vehicle for international migration cooperation.     

‘Colour-evasiveness’ and racism without race: the disablement of asylum-seeking children at the edge of fortress Europe

This article explores discriminatory discourses articulated by Italian professionals operating in educational, health and social services for refugees in Rome, in relation to the educational and social inclusion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children. It locates such narratives within the historical ‘concealment and invisibilisation of race and racism’ that have characterised Italy particularly since the end of the Second World War, while showing how they legitimate contemporary processes of disablement and over-representation of forced migrant children in the category of Special Educational Needs. A theoretical framework influenced by Dis/ability Critical Race Studies, Italian postcolonial studies, and Judith Butler’s notions of subjectivation and performative politics is used to discuss how a ‘colour-evasive’ racial ideology has seeped into various institutions in Italian society, and importantly into education policies and practices.     

European Union or Kingdom of the Antichrist? Protestant apocalyptic narratives and European unity

ABSTRACT

This article examines Protestant Euroscepticism in its purest form by focusing on the apocalyptic narratives of conservative Protestant dispensationalists in the UK, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. It estimates the numbers of end-times Eurosceptics, summarizes their apocalyptic narrative, traces its lineage to the Reformation, and explores its use in debates on European integration. The article argues that analyzing Protestant apocalyptic narratives contributes to understanding some important roots of present-day Euroscepticism in sixteenth-century anti-Catholicism and Protestant distrust of the ‘Catholic’ continent.     

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.     

Challenging Europe’s external borders and internal boundaries. Bosnian Xoraxané Xomá on the move in Roman peripheries and the contemporary European Union

ABSTRACT

This paper explores, from an ethnographic standpoint, the mobility of a Bosnian Romani community in relation to the xenophobic and anti-Romani discourses that are pervading contemporary Italian and European society in the time of the so-called migrant crisis. The analysis focuses on some so-called Xomá families who live dispersed among illegal shanties in the Rome and whose movements and social network protract into other Italian and European cities. The question of mobility is addressed both in terms of local movements within the Roman peripheries and of wider transnational trajectories. Romani mobility appears as a tactical response to processes imposed from above that challenges the forms of governmentality related to the policing of borders and the production of boundaries of the EU and its member-states.     

Disobedient subjects – constructing the subject,the state and religion in the European Court of Human Rights

In this article, I analyse how the law participates in the (re)production process of the subject, the state and religion, and how the law's indefiniteness allows various constructions of them all. In the first part of the article I discuss the Islamic headscarf cases of the European Court of Human Rights as examples of how the discursive constructions of the state and the subject can be challenged by means of disobedience. Here the focus is particularly on Turkey and on France, where the principle of secularism is largely regarded as the basis of the republic and of the national identity. The law provides an arena where the disobedient subject and the state can challenge and re-establish the prevailing conceptualizations of the subject. In the second part of the article I address the Court's alleged Islamophobia. I explore how the constructions of the state and the subject contribute to the way religion is framed in the Court's argumentation in relation to the freedom of religion guaranteed under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The analysis shows that religion can be framed as a personal belief system, a cultural tradition, or politics which, in turn, affects the course of legal argumentation. I conclude that the Court can plausibly be accused of Christian bias, but that this conclusion is often based on insufficient analysis of the Court's case law. This article contributes to the interdisciplinary discussion on the headscarf bans from the socio-legal perspective. The aim is to explore what, besides providing legal solutions, the law does.     

‘In England,they don’t call you black!’ Migrating racialisations and the production of Roma difference across Europe

This article draws on long-term fieldwork among Slovak Roma migrants, identifying processes through which a haunting figure of the Roma migrant emerges across Europe, to argue for more differentiated accounts of continuing and emerging forms of racialisation. It explores how the movement of Roma (whose bodies are marked by their racialised ‘darkness’ in Slovakia) to Britain granted them a temporary escape from this modality of branding while simultaneously exposing them to different categorisations within a re-configuring classificatory matrix. The article develops the concept of ‘migrating racialisation’ in order to empirically trace how historically developed forms of racialisation in Slovakia migrate across Europe through the movement of Roma and non-Roma migrants from Eastern Europe, as well as through particular forms of knowledge circulating within transnational fields constituted not only by Roma migrants themselves but also by various institutions for ‘managing’ or ‘researching’ ‘the Roma’. This concept allows us to analyse how the recent forms of racialisation simultaneously draw on heterogenous histories and nation-state formations, social conditions and sedimented bodily dispositions, which are re-adjusted to new social conditions, discourses and emerging forms of knowledge produced about Roma migrants over the last decade in British and European contexts.     

Center–periphery relations,local governance and conflicts in Ethiopia: the experience of Metekel province

In Ethiopia, the study and issue of center–periphery relations is not an easy task. It has remained complex and dynamics as it has been dictated and shaped by ever changing socio-economic relations, state ideology and structure. A case in point is Metekel region, which had been characterized by under development, lowland, hot climate and traditional way of life. Until post-1991developments, Metekel was peripheral in relation to the central state. It was an area of confrontation and conflict. Owing to the structural weakness of the centre, successive rulers of the area did not command effective control over it. Focusing on Gumuz, a Nilo-Saharan family, on one hand, and highlanders and new settlers, on the other, this essay examined the main features and dynamics of center–periphery relations, governance and conflicts in Metekel area. The sources, both primary and secondary, have been carefully examined based on the objectives of the study.     

Can you become one of us? A historical comparison of legal selection of ‘assimilable’ immigrants in Europe and the Americas

Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in ‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of permanent settlement immigration to Europe. Efforts to reduce Muslim immigration largely motivate contemporary European policies, but these policies test putative individual capacity to integrate rather than inferring it from a racial group categorisation, as did historical precedents in the Americas.     

A Discussion on the Origin,Characteristics of and Reasons for the Decline of Muli’s Great Lama-Tusi System of Rule

Muli,located in the southwest of Sichuan province, is a multi - ethnic enclave where Tibetans are the main residents. Historical-ly,Muli was called the“Muli Lama Kingdom”( simply called the“Muli Kingdo...     

‘Settling’ the multicultural nation-state: Little Mosque on the Prairie,and the figure of the ‘moderate Muslim’

This paper analyzes Little Mosque on the Prairie, its characters and themes within the context of post-9/11 discourses of nationalism and citizenship. Against the backdrop of the Canadian national narrative, I argue that the sitcom foregrounds a ‘moderate Muslim’ that demarcates the boundaries of the multicultural nation-state, especially when juxtaposed against the racially and sexually coded Muslim ‘other’ on the global landscape. The moderate Muslim is represented as ‘liberal’ and ‘modern’, one who seeks to integrate her faith into the multicultural fabric of society. Such a figure, represented both as a ‘good’ Muslim/immigrant and a ‘good’ Canadian citizen-subject, illuminates the boundaries of ‘acceptability’ within the Canadian national imaginary. The figure of the moderate Muslim reinforces the racial coding embedded in this imaginary, while enabling the state to proclaim its ‘multicultural tolerance’ and benevolence. Building on previous scholarship on race, citizenship, and nation-building, I argue that the moderate Muslim – as exemplified in Little Mosque on the Prairie – serves important ideological functions in (re)defining the internal (and racially coded) borders of the nation. While Little Mosque on the Prairie makes an important contribution to the representation of Muslims, challenging some stereotypes, I argue that it does not deliver on its considerable potential to articulate nuanced representations of Muslims. Through its foregrounding of the figure of the moderate Muslim, the sitcom reaffirms key norms, engages in a politics of authenticity, and reinforces hegemonic messages, both within Muslim communities and in Canadian society. Thus, the moderate Muslim becomes a key player in enabling the state to render invisible its exclusion of the ‘Muslim Other,' while maintaining its non-racist credentials.     

Which Factor has More Impact? An Examination of the Effects of Income Level, Perceived Neighborhood Disorder, and Crime on Community Care and Vigilance Among Low-Income African American Residents

This study investigated predictors of community care and vigilance among 70 African American residents living in high-crime, low-income neighborhoods. A stratified random sampling procedure was employed to select residents who completed a 20-item questionnaire assessing their sense of community care and vigilance and perceptions of perceived neighborhood physical and social disorder. We used police crime reports to assess the levels of property and violent offenses in the targeted neighborhoods. Our goal was to determine which of these variables best predicted community care and vigilance. The results of this study showed that social disorder and violent offenses negatively predicted community care and vigilance. Interestingly, the results also indicated that residents who reported the lowest income expressed the highest levels of community care and vigilance. Implications for community practice are discussed.     

In hindsight and now again: black male teachers’ recollections on the suffering of black male youth in US public schools

This article draws from data in a larger qualitative study on the lives of black male teachers in US public urban schools. I examine their schooling experiences as black male youth. By coupling theories of social suffering with life history methodology, this research analyzes how three black male teachers experienced frustration, marginalization, and misery as students. For these participants, academic tracking was a site of social suffering. This suffering persisted into their adult lives as classroom teachers, as they witnessed and attempted to mitigate the struggles of their own black male students. The findings in this study have implications for further research on black male teachers as well as their recruitment and retention in US public schools.     

Diversity,rights or privileges? Denunciation of multiculturalism, ‘political correctness’ and anti-racism of the ex-Commander of Scotland Yard Ali Dizaei

The widely disseminated court verdict on the former Scotland Yard commander, Ali Dizaei, as a violent bully and a liar at the end of his first trial in February 2010, brought about a noted denunciation of multiculturalism as ‘political correctness’. The jury's decision on the abuse of power by the Iranian-born officer was used by the denunciators to condemn the politics of rights that aligned multiple ethnic and racial identities as equal. The denunciation is looked at as a contingent mobilisation of the apolitical subject that is loitering on the boundary of politics calling for the ‘end of politics’ marked by the exclusion of the Other. At the same time the trial revealed that by advocating a policy designed to subsume particular ethnic and cultural belongings within a universal exercise of rights Dizaei had been able to resume his cultural differences as a source of privileges among his compatriots. Drawing on the incident as a result of which Dizaei had to stand trial and later a re-trial, using various sources, the paper examines the tension between the exercise of rights and privileges built into multiculturalism. The pertinence of the sources used to highlight the tension remains largely unaffected by the questioned reliability of the main witness of the prosecutor and the Appeal Court judges’ decision to order Dizaei's re-trial. The paper argues that multiculturalism sets in motion the incompatible agencies of the citizen, the member of a political community, and Man whose role is inscribed within civil society. Thus, the exercise of equal rights calls for dis-identification of the subject as a social and cultural agent. Such dis-identification, however, is displaced when the subject asserts his identity as Man, the bearer of unequal relations based on class, gender and race. In making provision both for the exercise of rights as well as the assertion of identity multiculturalism becomes instrumental in the subsumption of cultural differences within rights and the resumption of these differences in the articulation of privileges. The mediation of multiculturalism in the realization of rights and privileges accounts for the Iranian-born officer's oscillation between subsuming his cultural differences within British citizenship and resuming these differences in asserting his identity as an Iranian among the diasporic community. Using the notion of cultural diversity Dizaei was able to keep at arm's length the two spheres of rights and identity that allowed him to claim ‘not to be one of them’ thus oscillating between claiming the rights of a British citizen and the privileges of an Iranian magnate. The noted disruption in his power game that brought Dizaei to sit in the dock was the result of a failed attempt by the Iranian-born officer to contain the growing tension in his advocated multiculturalism arising from his simultaneous resort to rights and privilege.     

Do Expectations Make the Difference? A Look at the Effect of Educational Expectations and Academic Performance on Enrollment in Post-Secondary Education

Despite the belief that education is the great equalizer in American society, previous research has shown that the promises of educational accomplishments have not extended equally across racial/ethnic groups as minorities are less likely to matriculate to post-secondary education. Using data from the second follow-up and base year of the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, we examine the impact of GPA and students’ expectations on the probability of post-secondary enrollment. Specifically, we assess the impact of low achievement on the probability of post-secondary enrollment across racial/ethnic groups. We find that low achievement acts as less of a barrier to post-secondary enrollment for minority students compared with their non-Hispanic white counterparts. Moreover, students with high expectations and low achievement experienced higher probabilities of post-secondary enrollment than students with low expectations and high achievement. Given that minority students are said to have higher expectations, we examine whether the interaction of expectations and achievement varies across racial/ethnic groups. While we did not uncover racial/ethnic differences for low-achieving students with high expectations, our findings suggest that expectations help propel all low-achieving students with high expectations into post-secondary enrollment. This study moves beyond the traditional black/white differences by including a number of racial/ethnic groups.     

Does the Context of Racial Discrimination Matter for Adolescent School Outcomes?: The Impact of In-School Racial Discrimination and General Racial Discrimination on Black Adolescents’ Outcomes

The present study explored the role of context and gender on the association between racial discrimination and adolescents’ outcomes among Black nint     

‘Refugees welcome?’ The interplay between perceived threats and general concerns on the acceptance of refugees – a factorial survey approach in Germany

The on-going migration of refugees to Europe has fuelled debates about the indigence of refugees and the perceived legitimacy of individual claims for asylum in different receptive countries. With a substantial body of research that has investigated the antecedents of attitudes towards immigrants, evidence on whether those underlying assumptions hold true for refugees as well remains scarce. The paper applies the framework of Intergroup Threat Theory to arrive at competing hypotheses with regard to the acceptance levels of refugees. We use pooled data from two probabilistic samples drawn in the German city of Dresden and apply a confounded factorial survey design to extend previous research on attitudes towards refugees. We find that natives perceive political persecution and war as justified reasons for seeking asylum in Germany, while socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and refugees are of minor importance. Foremost, the individual level of respondent’s fear of crime represents a crucial moderator of the perception of refugees as threatening.     

Migrants: keeping a foot in both worlds or losing the ground beneath them? Transnationalism and integration as experienced in the everyday lives of Polish migrants in Belfast,Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses transnationalism and integration as processes entangled in the everyday lives of Polish migrants. It acknowledges that the co-existence of transnationalism and integration can present an array of choices and enable migrants to lead a fulfilling life in the receiving country while they continue to maintain a foothold in their original homeland. Yet, it might also create a feeling of disjuncture, discontinuity of relations, and ceaseless negotiation between inclusion and exclusion. It is, thus, important to bear in mind that migration is a process involving individuals with all their unique life experiences, complexities and consequences of their choices, sacrifices, ambiguities and hopes associated with the move. All of these have a profound impact on changes in migrants’ perception of, and attitude to, their place of origin, the specificities of destination setting and interpersonal relations between the two milieux. The empirical grounds for this discussion originate in biographical narrative interviews with Polish migrants in Belfast, Northern Ireland. These narratives portray transnationalism and integration as multiple trajectories, emphasising the co-existence of non-linear relations between the time and the intensity/frequency of migrants’ connections to the two settings. These will be examined using the theoretical framework of interpretative sociology, viewing individuals as constantly engaged in the task of interpretation, which is intrinsically rooted in the processes of interaction.