Labour Market Limbo: The Uneven Integration of Co‐Ethnic Argentine Immigrants in Spain
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12313 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
Labour Market Limbo: The Uneven
Integration of Co-Ethnic Argentine
Immigrants in Spain
Angela S. Garc
ıa*
ABSTRACT
Immigration and citizenship laws that discriminate by race, ethnicity, and national origins are
increasingly illegitimate in contemporary democracies, yet laws that grant privileged access
and membership to immigrants who share natives’ethnicity persist. This enduring positive
selection rests upon the assumption that co-ethnicity fosters integration. Countering this logic,
this article centers on co-ethnics’insertion into local labour markets. It draws from a case
study of Aguaviva, Spain, a depopulating village in which both co-ethnic Argentines and
Romanian immigrants reside. The analysis qualifies the trend of deracialization in immigration
and citizenship policy and shows that positive preferences do not uniformly foster integration.
In dual labour market systems, co-ethnics struggle because they are not different enough for
secondary sector jobs reserved for immigrant “others,”yet in the primary sector they enter into
direct competition with natives.
INTRODUCTION
For centuries, states formally excluded immigrants of particular races, ethnicities, and national ori-
gins due to perceived labour market competition (Dancygier, 2010; Olzak, 1992), cultural threat
(Burns and Gimpel, 2000; Sniderman et al. 2004), and the global diffusion and normalization of
racist policies (FitzGerald and Cook-Mart
ın, 2014). Some scholars argue that the concurrent rise of
contemporary liberal principles pushed democracies to shun exclusion by ascribed status in the late
twentieth century (Joppke, 2005; Zolberg, 2006). Others contend that World War II and the Cold
War prompted critical shifts in racial geopolitics that helped eliminate such overt discrimination
(FitzGerald and Cook-Mart
ın, 2014). Far less explored in the literature are enduring cases of posi-
tive selectivity in which co-ethnics –immigrants who share the native majority’s ethnicity –are
granted membership rights and privileged access to the polity (Joppke, 2005; Tsuda, 2009). This
type of policy is more compatible with the exigencies of contemporary liberal states and geopoliti-
cal norms because it makes positive derogations for preferred ethnic groups, while treating all non-
citizens equally.
* University of Chicago
[Correction added on 20 January 2017 after first online publication: The Introduction section was inadvertently
removed in the article and it is now reinstated in this version]
doi: 10.1111/imig.12313
©2017 The Author
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 55 (1) 2017
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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