Migration and the Terms of Inclusion

Abstract

This chapter’s main concern is to locate the lives of young adult migrants and their descendants within the contexts of changing patterns of mobility and how this impacts the issue of social inclusion and exclusion. First, through the life stories of the participants the chapter sets out the diversity of national contexts and the variety of situations, many of which are experiencing new patterns of migration in a new geopolitical situation. For example, the patterns of colonial relationships in countries like France and Britain have ceased to be the main channel for population mobility. As a result patterns of population mobility are more chaotic and unstable. All countries in our study – with the exception of Estonia – are experiencing new kinds of migration. The integration of Europe has facilitated great east–west flows of young people seeking out opportunities in the new Europe but these flows are not stable and are constantly changing. Equally, in the context of Southern Europe the movement of young people north from the Global South has induced anxiety in Italy and Spain with regard to the permeability of the borders of Europe. However, the liquid metaphors so often invoked to understand human mobility are underpinned by political implications. Newspaper headlines so often refer to ‘floods of immigrants’ where European societies are viewed as being ‘swamped’ by the differences brought by newcomers (Bohlen, 1997, BBC News, 2002, Stinson, 2006). These aquatic images of impending catastrophe reveal phobias that equate ‘the immigrant’ with risk and danger. As a result immigration is pathologized in the public debate which has become part of the problem itself. We seek to challenge these underpinnings by making them explicit.