Challengers in the migrant field: pro-migrant Irish NGO responses to the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill

Abstract

This article examines the dynamics through which the migrant field in Ireland is governed, and, through analysing NGO contention over the Immigration, Residence and Protection (IRP) Bill, explores the role they play in the field. The article argues that NGOs both influence and are institutionally channelled by state discourse surrounding migrants. The IRP Bill was designed to regulate non-EU citizens in Ireland, and codified the discretionary powers of the Irish state over migrants. While NGOs offered an influential critique of this process, in doing so they reproduced the dominant representation of migrants in Ireland as problems to be separated out and managed by elite experts. In explaining why this was so, I draw on Bourdieu's argument that those within a field of practice articulate their identities and goals through the dominant language of that field.

Between humanitarian assistance and migration management: on civil actors’ role in voluntary return from Belgium

“…Over the last few years, this externalisation process fed into the topical question of how and under which conditions these external actors are able to transform these migration policies through their own practices and actions, rather than simply executing the policies of their funders (Lahav & Guiraudon 2006;Landy 2015;Statham and Geddes 2006). This article concentrates more precisely on 'civil actors', which are understood as the variety of 'nonstate or nongovernmental and non-market actors', including NGOs, 'social movements, religious institutions and trade unions' (Ambrosini & Van der Leun 2015).…”

“…Third, the Belgian AVR programme has been governed through a democraticcorporatist decision-making structure, in which civil actors are structurally engaged in a mutual dialogue from early stages in the policy-making process, rather than simply asked to implement or execute top-down policy-measures. This institutional set-up distinguishes Belgian migration policies from their more centralist or state-directed counterparts in other European countries, such as Ireland (Landy 2015), the U.K. (Statham & Geddes 2006) and the Netherlands (Van der Leun 2006).…”

“…In this sense, Fedasil's cooperative coordinating style and its emphasis on 'durable' return was retained even in the face of a political climate bent on using voluntary return as a precursor for forced deportation. Precisely this set-up is what distinguishes Belgian migration policies more generally from its counterparts in Ireland (Landy 2015), U.K. (Statham & Geddes 2006) and the Netherlands (Van der Leun 2006).…”

“…By doing so, nation-states seek to circumvent the limits of their sovereign power in regulating the principally transnational phenomenon of migration. For civil organisations such as NGOs, however, participating in these state policies means putting themselves into a fundamentally ambivalent situation, pronged between their own imperative to improve immigrants' well-being and their funders' attempts to restrict migration more effectively (Ambrosini 2015;Landy 2015;Van der Leun 2006). A crucial question is therefore how civil organisations deal with the puzzling position they find themselves in.…”

International migration and the NGOs working in the field of migration in Turkey

“…NGOs working in the field of migration are active subjects with undeniable roles in producing and circulating discourses and narratives in the public sphere in addition to media, migrants themselves, political parties, state institutions, international organizations, etc. Yet, their ability to influence and dominate remains limited vis‐à‐vis the fluctuating dominant discourses (Landy, 2015). Albeit holding a pro‐migrant position that underlines the subjecthood of the migrant communities, NGOs from time to time might find themselves, though unwittingly, contributing to the discourses that reflect the “weakness” and “dependency” of the migrants who need protection (Landy, 2015; Triandafyllidou, 2000).…”