Translocations: Migration and Social Change

a special issue on

‘Integration’

edited by Gavan Titley and Mark Maguire

‘Integration’ has re-emerged in recent years as the preferred rubric for the governance of difference. ‘Integration’ encompasses a wide and sometimes contradictory set of policy initiatives and goals and is implicated in a range of debates, from social cohesion to national and religious identity and, increasingly, the perceived threat to liberal democratic values. Yet for all this, integration discourses remain frustratingly vague not only because of the difficulties involved in imagining what an integrated society would look like, but also because such discourses tend to play opposite the dramatic foil provided by ‘multiculturalism’.
Multiculturalism, we are told, was a failed experiment that offered only fragmentation, parallel communities and cultural particularism; integration, we are told, offers certainty, cohesion and security.

The publication of Migration Nation in 2008 by the Office of the Minister for Integration marks the Irish government’s official acceptance of this ambivalent and contested rubric, and Irish policy and public discussions have been marked by the determination to ‘learn from mistakes elsewhere’. Thus, an assessment of the politics of integration in Ireland must proceed from acknowledging the influence of a wider context, and an assessment of the politics of integration in Ireland offers an interesting opportunity to look at wider contexts afresh. Yet what does this entail, normatively, politically and socially? While the aim of this special edition is to examine the relevance and utility of ‘integration’ in Ireland at this particular juncture, we also encourage critical and theoretical discussion of ‘integration’ based on European and other international examples. This special issue of Translocations calls for contributions directed towards a number of questions and in a variety of formats as outlined below:

• How might we theorize visions of ‘integration’ and the ‘integrated society’?
• Concomitantly, how might we theorize normative visions of the ‘dis-integrated’ society?
• How are different sectors conceptualising, performing and rearticulating ‘integration’?
• At what scale does ‘integration’ occur, and in what registers might integration be discussed?
• What are the lived modalities and experiences of multiculture and integration?
• How might emergent scholarly research inform critical approaches?
• In what ways can we approach the ‘problem of difference’ in the changing nation-state?
• In what ways is ‘integration’ a form of work that actively promotes racialisation and produces forms of inclusion and exclusion?
• How might we think about the linguistic ideologies and discursive formations around integration?
• What are the ‘mistakes elsewhere’?
• In what ways does research on integration-related themes require critical evaluation?

For this special issue we are inviting:

(1) Full-length contributions (6-8,000 words) that address these types of questions and draw on Irish or other examples;

(2) Contributions addressed to these questions from graduate students or young scholars in the form of short exploratory essays (3-4,000 words);

(3) Previous contributors to Translocations to return to their work and, in short essays (1,500 -2,000 words), reflect on their earlier contribution in the light of current events and developments;

(4) Shorter contributions (4-6,000 words) that focus on projects and practical efforts related to integration. We particularly encourage submissions from individuals and/or organisations that wish to report on innovative approaches to integration and inclusion.

Finally, are you interested in reflecting on scholarly or other literature on integration, or in exploring integration and multiculture through visual media? We are seeking proposals (short abstracts in the first instance) for review essays, photographic essays or experimental visual documents. Or, are you interested in discussing integration via an experimental media platform? We are seeking proposals and/or expressions of interest for and interviews and debates section of the journal.

If you are interested in contributing, please forward an abstract of no more than 150 words, giving your name, institutional affiliation and four key words by 16 October 2009. Completed articles are required by the end of January 2010.

Abstracts by email only with the subject line ‘Integration’ to Gavan Titley or Mark Maguire at either Gavan.Titley@nuim.ie or Mark.H.Maguire@nuim.ie