“Everyone with Eyes Can See the Problem”: Moral Citizens and the Space of Irish Nationhood

Abstract

This paper examines Ireland's 2004 Constitutional Amendment which removes birthright citizenship from any future Irish-born children of immigrant parents. I argue that for particular historical reasons, the ability of the state to convince its citizens of the necessity for this Amendment was remarkable and I suggest that it was able to do so by constructing citizenship as a moral regime and foreign-nationals and their foetuses as 'suspect patriots.' I describe how the notion of immorality is laminated upon black bodies -specifically black pregnant women -and how the presence of black migrant workers, refugees and asylees consequently comes to be experienced in Irish national space as transgressive, their political subjecthood constrained by the supposedly legible abjectivity of their bodies. The issue of race remains unenunciated, and yet, as the Minister for Justice stated during the referendum debate, 'anyone with eyes can see the problem.' The Irish government's privileging of moral rather than cultural incommensurability is strikingly similar to culturalist rhetorics of exclusion that are often invoked when race is at issue in European public debate on immigration. Configured upon, and therefore experienced as a type of body, immorality becomes an alibi for race and is naturalized as a form of exclusion and as a potential site of state intervention in the form of xenophobic legislation and policymaking. Reading this decision as merely racist however, fails to give voice to the experiences of Irish Citizens who voted for this Amendment. Their struggle to build a "New Ireland" and to accept a multiculturalist framework in the face of neo-liberal restructuring policies and a European-wide retreat from the welfare state must be considered as being in dialectical tension with the ideological smearing of immigrants if we are to fully grasp the complex interaction between relations of power and the privileging of difference.

“Awakening to a Nightmare”

“…When taken to its extreme, the state can target such exceptions, physically separate them from society, isolate them into "zones of social abandonment," and even engage in practices of genocide, extermination, or ethnic cleansing (Biehl 2005). 5 But before such endpoints are reached, if ever, a set of practices can emerge that mark off or bracket a group as different, less than, unworthy, illegitimate, undeserving (Sargent and Larchanché-Kim 2006;Tormey 2007;Willen 2007;Zhang 2001). What marks the group as "Other" derives from particular histories and can coalesce around any number of traits: race, religion, sex, physical or mental disability, stigmatized disease, migration history, or citizenship status, among others.…”

Illegal Migration and Gender in a Global and Historical Perspective

“…Chavez (2001Chavez ( , 2004 examines constructions of Latina reproduction in the US, showing how media representations are able to 'produce fears about the population growth of Latinos in American society, which in turn positions them as a possible threat to the "nation", that is, the "people" as conceived in demographic and racial terms ' (2004:173). Similarly, Sargent (2006) and Tormey (2007) provide case studies from Western Europe to demonstrate how immigration regulations and population policies are inscribed on the bodies of migrant women. In her study of Malian migrants in Paris, Sargent (2006) illustrates how anti-natalist discourse coexists with otherwise pro-natalist French policies regarding family size.…”

Historical Experiences of Migration in Political Discourse in Greece: Using Critical Discourse Analysis to Explore Policy Legitimation

“…References to -often idealized -past experiences of displacement or refugee reception have been used to legitimate policies in settings as diverse as the UK, Australia, Austria, and Germany (Kleist, 2012;Kushner, 2006;Steiner, 2000). In the Irish context, "historical duty" arguments, where traumatic historical experiences of emigration are believed to create moral obligations for the fair and humanitarian treatment of refugees and migrants, have been widely employed in political and media discourse (Glynn & Kleist, 2012;Lentin, 2003;Tormey, 2007). This is not to suggest that such discourses are fixed or unchangeable (Glynn & Kleist, 2012, p. 6).…”

“…Less attention has been paid not only to how histories of migration affect relations between citizens and migrants, but also to how they interrelate with the formation of identities and policies of incorporation and integration (Glynn & Kleist, 2012). However, migration histories are enmeshed in the development of collective identities and the articulation of discourses of belonging, and in the legitimation of policies on migration asylum and integration (Glynn & Kleist, 2012;Tormey, 2007). In this article, I explore how past experiences of migration are used to legitimate or delegitimate asylum and migration policies in Greek parliamentary debates.…”

“…Similarly, Tony Kushner (2006) has demonstrated that constructions of historical experiences of refugeeness in the UK tend to construct "deserving" and "undeserving" refugees. The use of historical duty arguments can also be purely rhetorical (Glynn & Kleist, 2012;Tormey, 2007;Van der Valk, 2003) and can decrease over time, as perception of moral duty decline in the face of increased migration flows (Glynn & Kleist, 2012;Steiner, 2000).…”