Together with researchers on the Migrant Network Project, which is part of the Trinity Immigration Initiative, I am completing a book which marks the end of the three-year project. Among other things, we argue that migrants are never only objects of acts of Government but rather active agents who, given half a chance, enact their own politics of ‘self integration’.
Through lobbying, advocacy, outreach, information and support, the 436 associations we have identified not only provide essential services otherwise not available, but also participate in policy debates around issues that affect migrants, implement strategies of cultural adaptation and resistance, create opportunities for individual and community advancement, and provide a platform for disadvantaged segments of the population to become visible and active.
Indeed, migrant-led activism is hugely impressive – one example of it was given last Saturday in AkiDwA’s ‘Brain Gain’ event, which allowed the group’s members and other migrants to network and showcase their achievements. The atmosphere was celebratory.
The only person who reminded the audience that integration is never a smooth process was Chinedu Onyejelem, the editor of this paper, who spoke about migrants for whom finding work in their field is far from a straight path. Indeed we all know of the radiographer forced to work as a community worker, the doctor forced to work as a night porter, and the teacher working as kitchen staff. However, there were also some success stories of migrants who were able, after a shaky start, to find employment in their fields.
Even though migrant-led activism is hugely impressive – particularly in insisting on speaking for themselves, and not through well-meaning white Irish people – it runs the risk of working within State parameters, becoming ‘State activism’. Migrant-led activism fits what has been called resistance ‘from within’, aiming to reform rather than oppose the State.
And yet, activism is always interventionist, aiming to change the system while at the same involving a strong commitment to life. The migrant activists we have worked with definitely focus on a better life in their new destination for themselves, their families and their communities.
Our study demonstrates that migrants often explicitly appropriate State discourses such as ‘interculturalism’, ‘integration’ or ‘diversity’, while not always aware that these are policy responses to the ‘problem of difference’. If Irish interculturalism can be understood as a response to failed policies of multiculturalism and assimilationism elsewhere, I see the post-migratory practices of migrant-led associations as ‘integration from below’.
Migrants not only strategically appropriate State discourses (to secure scarce funds and a place at the table), they also resist these very discourses which disavow power inequalities, deny migrants crucial funding and a meaningful independent voice, and ultimately appropriate their intercultural practices so as to bolster the State’s own integration efforts.
AkiDwA – about which I have written often in these pages – is a wonderful example of an organisation that continues to grow and develop. Remember that while most migrant activists aim for visibility in their new Irish abode, invisibility is often another strategy for success, as migrant-led associations work quietly on education, art, and culture, aiming to teach the young generation their home languages and keep their home cultures alive.
However, far be it from me to idealise all migrant-led activism – we all know of the small number of groups who prefer to remain invisible because their business is criminal or subversive.
Dr Ronit Lentin is head of the MPhil in Race, Ethnicity, Conflict at the Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. Her column appears fortnightly in Metro Éireann.
