Surviving mechanisms of power in immigration strategies: embracing Otherness and pluralisms
| Author | Sara Marino |
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1755088214550115 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Journal of International Political Theory
2015, Vol. 11(2) 167 –183
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088214550115
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Surviving mechanisms of
power in immigration
strategies: embracing
Otherness and pluralisms
Sara Marino
University of Westminster, UK
Abstract
The recent waves of immigration towards Europe are questioning our capacity to
embrace Otherness, despite the well-acclaimed multiculturalism and hybridisation upon
which Western societies have been built. Tension is building fast along the perceived
‘explosion’ of borders, and many immigrants are excluded from civic and political
participation through discrimination, racism and xenophobia. The marginal positions
of such minorities render them easily identifiable as scapegoats, susceptible to blame
for problems that are, in fact, domestic. This article will investigate the mechanisms of
power that still inform and redirect our immigration policies by looking at how the idea
of ‘Otherness’ is embraced and understood. Desired outcomes include the opportunity
to critically debate the relationship between citizenship and multiculturalism from a
transnational perspective that privileges the practices of hybridisation and permeability
against the ethnically oriented preservation of cultures.
Keywords
Citizenship, inclusion, migration, Otherness, scapegoat, transnationalism, difference.
Introduction: The unwanted, the unwelcomed, the others
In this age where almost 216 million people, or 3.15% of the world population, live out-
side their countries1 and migration is recognised as the ‘human face’ of globalisation,
scholars, politicians and media experts are increasingly questioning how displaced popu-
lations, especially migrants, refugees and diasporas, redefine the issue of national
belonging within a global hierarchy of power. Particularly in recent years, political
Corresponding author:
Sara Marino, University of Westminster, Watford Road, Nortwick Park, HA1 3TP, UK.
Email: sara.marino84@gmail.com
550115IPT0010.1177/1755088214550115Journal of International Political TheoryMarino
research-article2014
Article
168 Journal of International Political Theory 11(2)
debates concerning the globalisation of human rights and securitisation discourses have
been countervailing forces acting on initiatives by the European Union (EU) to develop
a coherent policy on migration into the Union. As freedom of movement within the
Union has been granted to all citizens, thus representing a milestone in the development
of a multiculturalist discourse, concomitantly we have seen the securing of external bor-
ders and the increasing perception of migration as a ‘problem’ rather than as a source, as
we should have expected in such a scenario. In the twenty-first century, associations and
policy makers have increasingly been stuck in the equivalence made between ‘illegal’
immigrants and criminals or terrorists (Mathew, 2008). As a consequence, such rhetoric
justifies practices that many consider to be in violation of migrants’ basic human rights:
the extension of detention for immigration purposes, for example (Handoll, 2007), but
also and more generically the way media foster public opinion in terms of unilateral
descriptions of alterity. As Alessandra Buonfino (2004) notes, ‘today, the border between
immigration and social fear has become very thin’ (p. 23). In this brief statement,
Buonfino clearly pinpoints one of the key aspects that this article will attempt to untan-
gle: the fact that migrancy, despite the ‘multiculturalist fairy-tale’ that has been repeat-
edly told at Europe’s bedtime, is still perceived with suspicion and mistrust. Migrants are
often seen as unwelcomed and unwanted guests (Tsagarousianou, 2004), constantly
under scrutiny for their daily routines and traditions, excluded from the ‘legitimate’ pub-
lic places where citizens live and dialogue. Suspicion and mistrust are both products and
consequences of a general state of insecurity that is increased by misinformation. As
mentioned by Buonfino, it is the official casting of migration as an issue of security and
the rise of populist rhetoric in public discourse that focuses on crime, violence and dan-
ger to ‘national identity’ posed by migration, rather than migration itself, that increases
social insecurity and anxiety. Far from being a contemporary issue, the Western political
tradition has always tried to achieve – and protect – myths of racial purity and cultural
integrity against outsiders, perceived as responsible for the irreparable loss of values,
identities and stability.
Nonetheless, over the past three decades, migration flows have changed in a number
of ways, with an increase in both number and complexity to and within Europe that made
manifest new challenges, such as about how to respond to diversity, rather than about
diversity itself (Benhabib, 2002). We now live in a far more complex society than ever
before, where forms of exclusion and discrimination towards illegal and irregular
migrants with lower employment and educational opportunities cohabit with episodes of
successful ‘contamination’, with little or no conflict. A ‘clash of civilisations’, as some
would say, is not an inevitable fact of modern society; in fact, it is more the complex
result of a variety of interconnected factors, such as anxiety over belonging and identity,
conflicts abroad, the behaviour of institutions, a widespread fear that familiar things are
being taken away, feelings of powerlessness and perceptions of being treated unfairly or
not being listened to.
For the purposes of this article, I am interested in understanding what informs this
specific rhetoric of exclusion that seems to fuel European citizens’ anxieties on immigra-
tion, security and national identity, thus aggravating those feelings of suspicion or mis-
trust I previously mentioned. A tormented wave of anti-establishment populism is
sweeping through Europe, partly as a result of the drift to the right in the European
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