Peripheralized in the Periphery: Migration, Deportation, and Detainment in Ireland and Spain

The geographical locations of Ireland and Spain are undoubtedly distinct, however the nations’ historically subaltern positions in the context of Europe underscore their respective tensions within the Eurozone and engagements with migration.  Ireland has not always had a comfortable linkage to continental Europe and its related identities, and Spain - in its southern European position, twentieth century isolation during the Franco era, and proximity to continental Africa - has experienced an “otherness” in relation to northern European nations. Furthermore, the Republic of Ireland is a nation that has experienced oppression and colonial subjectivity in its relations with Britain (arguably still unresolved outside of the Eurozone and to the North), and the Spanish nation emerged in its current form after thirty-six years of the oppressive era of autocrat Francisco Franco. Amidst boom and bust times precipitated by European Union membership and global economic conditions, both nations have also been sites of in-migration. The nations’ mutual circumstances of significant successes in spite of peripheralization and oppression make Ireland and Spain important sites in which to consider the limits of belonging and inclusion in contemporary Europe. The proposed paper – focusing on recent African Diaspora migrations - considers deportations, detainment, and the modes of acquiring a status that legally and politically represents belonging. All are circumstances which demonstrate that the distinction between belonging to a society and belonging in a specified place within a society will continue to underlie the extent of social inclusion across Europe.