Whither the “European Dream”?: European Integration, Sub-National Identity and Immigrant Exclusion in Dublin and Madrid

A Roma girl was grabbed from a school bus and deported by French police, as “only a minority” of Roma are believed to integrate in France. Debate on “poverty migration” is severely polarizing publics and elites in Germany. British Prime Minister Cameron is ready to abandon the idea of unified Europe to curb non-European and Eastern European migration to the UK. Heated debate on who belongs is once again raging throughout the Continent, including in new migration countries like Spain or Ireland, which have so far avoided the anti-immigrant sentiment gripping the rest of Europe. Exclusion is particularly prominent on the local level, especially with immigration policy supranationalization under the European Union.  

This paper explores the migration discourses prevalent in new sub-national migration spaces like Dublin and Madrid. The article argues that despite rhetoric of foreign workers’ economic utility, it is the cultural determinants of exclusion and inclusion that explain the reception of diverse immigrant populations. It further asserts that local and national identity characteristics, and not pan-European identity, determine group boundaries. Counterintuitively, common European identification and deepening European political integration do not translate into preferential treatment for European migrants. Embedded non-European communities are in fact privileged if they fit within larger narratives of national and sub-national belonging, especially for countries currently on the European cultural and economic periphery. Sources include ethnographies of Poles and Nigerians in Dublin and Bulgarians and Ecuadorians in Madrid.