Thursday, July 9, 2015
S07 (13 rue de l'Université)
This paper studies the comparative welcome or rejection of immigrant workers in the new immigration spaces of Dublin and Madrid. Despite similar economic and immigration trajectories in the 1990s, Spain and Ireland have attracted very different foreign populations. European Poles, and as of late Romanians, continue to dominate immigration inflows in Ireland, although Nigerians and Filipinos register a major presence. The objective of the paper is to disentangle variations in reception and political incorporation among immigrants in the two destinations. The main question it poses is: What determines outcomes in political participation and integration in new Western European immigration spaces, such as Dublin and Madrid? To respond to this question, the paper also considers: On what basis are inclusion and exclusion of the immigrant “other” constructed in Western European receiving societies?; and Do inclusion-exclusion dynamics affect political incorporation outcomes?
