Chapter 1: Introduction
The aim of this dissertation is to explore the social integration
experiences of young Kurdish refugees in Ireland. Since integration is a broad concept,
looking at all aspects of integration will be beyond the scope of this
dissertation. Therefore the aspect of integration that I am particularly
concerned with in this study, is social integration in terms of access to
housing, welfare assistance, belonging, friendship, and participation in civil
society organisations. Social integration can be defined in multiple ways as its
characteristics are multidimensional in understanding. For example it is a term
that reflects an inclusionary goal; implying equal opportunity and rights for
all human beings regardless of class, ethnicity, ‘race’, religion and cultural
background; for some others the term means a way of describing the established
patterns of human relations in any given society (UNRISD, 1994, Hewitt de
Alcantara, 1995). Yet other points of view have emphasised that one should also
study negative forms of integration that lead to social integration of
immigrants, but at the same time undermine the rule of law in the receiving society by, for example,
engagement in petty criminal activities and undermining the role and regulations
with regard to employment (Cagiano, 1993). Despite variation in understanding
concerning social integration, relatively, a comprehensive and significant works
have been developed by Parekh (2005) and Barkan (1995) with specific focus upon
social integration. I return to them in my conceptual discussion in chapter 2.
The term
integration used in this research links to concepts of exclusion and inclusion
of young Kurdish refugees in the economic and political domain of the host
society, and its capacity to permit the mobility of refugees both economically
and politically. Although the primary intention of this study is not the economic
and political integration of Kurdish refugees it could be argued that without
referring to these concepts, one cannot acquire a holistic picture in analysing
the social integration of Kurdish refugees. The reason for the interconnectedness
of the social integration with other dimensions of integration relates to the
fact that the realisation of social integration is most likely possible once
individual migrants have politically been integrated in terms of having rights that
are stipulated in citizenship concept presented by Marshall (1992). In such a
situation, migrants and refugees are able to exercise their rights and
consequently promote their economic conditions by means of economic integration.
In order to understand the
responses of Kurdish refugees it is important to relate my discussion to the
ways in which the Irish government has responded to the presence of Kurdish and
other refugees. It must be borne in mind that my indication to the state’s
social policies at this juncture refers to the macro policies such as the state’s
ideological strategy with regard to migrants and refugees that is generally
reflected in government policies in the form of interculturalism,
multiculturalism, anti-racism and so on. The forms and strategies that the
state have taken on, in response to migrants and refugees can have a direct effect
on, for example housing, employment, education, discrimination and racism and
consequentially on their integration process (Wahlbeck, 1999).
Lack of sufficient research in the field of
integration in Ireland, and Kurdish refugees in particular puts refugees in the
status of voiceless; a situation in which they became invisible in the studies
and research domain. Britton et al (2002) simply call them ‘disappeared’
and say that sooner or later; they will be somebody’s problem. This research
seeks to highlight experiences and potential problems they have had during
spending life in Ireland and attend to that knowledge gap by specifically
focusing on the Kurdish integration within the Irish society.
According to Ruhs (2005), the number of migrants entering Ireland
has dramatically increased due to the Irish economic boom and the increase in
labour demand. This demographic change in the Irish population which was accompanied
by more ethnic diversity than ever, coincided with a shift in public debate concerned
with the conditions of entering refugees to a debate about the integration of
immigrants and refugees. In the context of such a debate, the interculturalism
version of integration, claimed by the Irish state as a strategy policy in response
to the need of migrants and refugees in Ireland. The core dictum of this policy
reflected by the Department of Justice (2006) that states integration is, a
‘two way process’. This emphasises certain duties and obligations on the
refugees as well as the host society. Thus, a brief explanation of the Irish
state response to migration-related diversity is essential to more fully
comprehend the integration processes affecting refugees within Ireland. In
discourse about integration policy in Ireland the role of EU’s Common Basic
Principles of Integration that had a profound influential impact on Irish
integration policy, should not be underestimated. These principles include
labour market inclusion, long-term residence rights and anti-discriminatory
measures. Eleven Common Basic Principles (CBPs) were developed by the EU for
its members to adopt while structuring their integration policy (Council of the
European Union, 2004). Despite the fact that the integration discourses in EU
level became a priority in discussion about managing migrants and refugees;
each country followed a specific line of policy to meet this priority as there
is no obligatory rule for the EU member states to implement. For example in
Britain, until recently, the concept of multiculturalism was a prevailing
discourse in governmental level; in France the long-term objective policy is assimilation
and in Germany immigrants are viewed as Gastarbeiter (gust worker). In Ireland,
however, up to now the concept of interculturalism has underpinned official
language for integration. At the same time it could be argued that, in Ireland, despite the fact that terms
such as multiculturalism, interculturalism, anti-racism and cognate terms have widely
dominated discussions concerning integration there is a distinct absence of any
sustained and rigorous debate in public discourses as an ideological position. The
integration process in Ireland, to some extent is perceived to have failed to
integrate refugees in the social, economic and political activities of Irish
society (Boucher, 2008). To a certain
degree, the failure in policy could be related to several factors ranging from
the notion that Ireland has less than the experiential background needed to address
the challenges posed by the newly arrived refugees and immigrants (Mussano,
2003, Coakley and Mac Einri, 2007) to the normative, administrative, political
and constitutional barriers.
In 1998, on the
Traveller Organisation’s request, Ireland took on a model of interculturalism
to combat discrimination and racism in the society. The effect of this model
restricted only to educational strategy (Ging and Malcolm’s, 2004) while the
term surfaces in a wide variety of sometimes conflicting practices that can be
best understood as a critique of, or alternative to, the limit of
multiculturalism. To a certain degree, the notion of interculturalism and the
measures identified with it have remained only within the voluntary sectors
rather than states agencies (Fanning, 2002). In Fanning’s view, ‘the project has stalled and seems likely to be
abandoned as a model for future integration policy’ (Fanning, 2009, p. 20).
More recently, literature has emerged that offers contradictory findings
between policy and practice with regard to immigrants and refugees in Ireland.
For the most part, the contradictions have related to the fact that the integration
policies in Ireland are based more on statements than actual policies,
explaining that the notion of interculturalism puts emphasis on common civil
culture based on values of freedom and liberty; and the intercultural approach
to minority groups is one in which policy promotes the interaction between and
among minority groups with different cultural backgrounds. While the prevailing
idea about minority groups is one of republicanism approach, the state tends to
put emphasis on the notion that all cultures are on the same level and should
be treated equally. Fanning argues that minority groups in Ireland are still
often recognised as abnormal sub-groups of the dominant ‘normal’ culture, where
‘reckoning with dominant ideas of belonging cannot be avoided’ (Fanning, 2009,
p. 119). It could be argued that minority groups are more likely to be merged
into the majority dominant culture rather than integrate into the Irish society
based on mutual respect and understanding. This republicanism approach has been
reflected in official responses to minority groups for example during Turban
debate in 2007 and also 2004 referendum on citizenship. Despite
the state’s assertion on interculturalism concerning integration, in contrast, it is
widely believed that, in dealing with integration of refugees and immigrants,
Ireland adopts a de facto unauthorised version of multiculturalism seen
as a model of ‘political recognition’ advocated by Taylor and adopted in
Britain (Sarkowsky, 2010 and Mussano, 2003). This approach to integration which
emphasises multiculturalism in the public domain (Boucher, 2008), seeks to
formulate a way to deal with refugees and immigrants without paying much
attention to the culture, ‘ethnicity’ language, religion, family and morality
of refugees and immigrants in general. Such an approach to integration which ‘has
been for the most part restricted to the economy’ (Fanning, 2006, p. 119),
seems deterrent to provide future social cohesion as a main goal of integration;
it rather endorses civic stratification based on racial and class differentiation
that is opposed to civic integration. In Lentin and McVeigh (2002) perspective
both multiculturalism and interculturalism, in the Irish context, are best
understood as a set of political policies that endeavours to deal with cultural
diversity that is seen as a “problem”. They further argue that the axis of
debate in regard to minority groups is not about their cultures rather it is
about their impact on the western culture. Possibly, it is in the light of such
discourse that the need for theorising refugee by sociologists such as
Ravenstein 1885 (cited in Salt, 1984), Lee 1966 (cited in Salt, 1984), Peterson
(1958), Zolberg (1989), and finally Kunz (1981) became significant important in
order to think better about experiences of migrants and refugees in receiving
countries (see Chapter two).
Nevertheless, there is ample evidence that most of the social
violence that occurs in multi-ethnic societies emerges from a lack of social
cohesion resulted from social stratification. Social stratification in Karl
Marx’s perspectives developed on the base of social class while Weber stresses
economic factors, status and power. Undermining minority groups under any
circumstances can be seen as an act of division which cultivates future
conflicts. In MacEinri’s (2007) views, the status quo approach to
integration by the Irish state is necessarily disruptive as it undermines
minority communities. However, it can be argued that the Irish state has chosen
to take an approach to integration that has consequentially led to exclusion.
Fanning goes
further in criticising multiculturalism in Ireland and suggests that racism and
discrimination in Ireland has been expressed in the form of multiculturalism. He
concluded that the current legislations,
practices and voluntary initiatives are described as amounting to weak
multiculturalism that derives from a narrow focus on liberal democratic rights
with little attention to discrimination and racism (Fanning, 2002). Adapting
such a way of dealing with minority groups has been considered as failed policy
in many Western European countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, France and
Britain who have shifted their attention from such policies to alternative ways
of dealing with migrants and refugees. In recent years, there has been an
increasing interest in intercultural form of integration. This desire and
tendency in shifting policy from multiculturalism to a more inclusive form of
integration relates to the notion that the term multiculturalism further enhances
cultural division and at the same time within such a policy the cultural aspect
of minorities will be seen as a norm and primordial. In
Britain and Germany the term multiculturalism has been challenged by Chancellor
Angela Merkel and David Cameron for its incompetency in dealing with refugees
and immigrants (British Prime Minister Speech at Munich Security Conference,
2011). The nutshell is that ‘multiculturalism does
not work’ (Fanning, 2009, p. 2). In
spite of failed experiences of multiculturalism in other European countries;
the Irish are making the same mistakes as
the temptation is toward the ‘ethnic nepotism’. This concept tends to construct
national identity as a defensive response to immigration and exclude the
‘non-national’ predicated upon the notion of citizen and non-citizen which is originated
from exclusionary ideology. In the context of such debate, Fanning suggests a cosmopolitan
citizenship approach in dealing with immigration and refugees in receiving
countries. Within the framework of contemporary cosmopolitanism there is room
for inclusion within the nation-state. Fanning portrayed how the UN Convention
on the rights of Refugees is depicted by advocates of cosmopolitanism. The 1951
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which had significant influence
on the Irish Refugee Act 1996, is the key legal document in defining who is a
refugee, their rights and the legal obligations of states. The Irish Refugee
Act 1996 is an important piece of legislation in dealing with refugees in Ireland.
Cullen (2000) outlines that, despite the fact that the Act has an important affect
in dealing with refugees only specific sections of the Act have been
implemented. Nevertheless, Fanning portrays that the Irish state, in dealing
with its immigrants does not need to look at other European countries, it
rather needs to take into account the experiences of rejection policy toward the
Traveller community as an object lesson in the failure of political rejection. Boucher has forward laissez-faire concept to
describe the status quo policy of integration of refugees and immigrants in Ireland.
In this circumstance refugees and immigrants are responsible for their own
integration, rather than a state-led integration. He argues that ‘the
government‘s minimal role in integration policies leads one to conclude that
Ireland has a new-liberal, laissez-faire integration strategy with regard to migrants
and refugees’ (Boucher, 2008, p. 2). Boucher and many other scholars such as
Gilligan (2006) are confidence that state-led integration is important. In
Gilligan perspective state intervention is an important mechanism to the
integration process. The question that arises from this argument is how young
Kurdish refugees can be integrated socially, economically and politically
within this laissez-faire approach and how feasible it is to recognise people
with different cultures and identities. MacEinri (2007) suggests that the new
possibilities of identity can have meaning when they are accompanied by an
equally radical emphasis on the core values of a civilised and diverse society,
sensitive to culture, religion, age, class and gender.
The supposed
intentions of integration within a liberal democratic state are to provide an
equal opportunity in which all individual members of society can have economic
success, access to education, and services provided by the state irrespective
of their “race” or ethnic distinctiveness. The notion of inequality in a multi-ethnic
society to a large extent relates to the distinctiveness of people based on
their perceived ‘race’ rather than class. Thus, racism related issues in the
integration process of Kurdish refugees in Ireland, may have been neglected in
debate. The obstacles that may hinder the integration process of immigrants are
varied from different prospective and range from the notion that the cultures
of minority communities are far more open to change and to democratic values,
to the expression of some commentators who criticises the structural aspect of
the host society which resists integration of ethnic minority groups, and
ultimately the alternative points of view that blames certain groups within the
society such as racists for the dysfunction of integration in the society
(Gilligan, 2006). By presenting refugee and diaspora theories in the next
chapter I will seek to shed light on Kurdish situation in the context of
mentioned concepts in order to understand how Kurdish refugee will fit into either
refugee theory or diaspora theory (see Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
Refugee and Diaspora sections).
In studying the integration of Kurdish
refugees in the UK, Wahlbeck (1999) puts emphasis on the racist policies,
unemployment, social isolation, discrimination that create obstacles to the notion
of integration. He argues that, placing weight on cultural differences in fact
legitimises and reinforces racist and culturalist discourses which define the refugee
as the ‘other’ and can support various exclusionary policies (Wahlbeck, 1999).
He avoids blaming people for example because of their cultural differences or
the exercise of “Free choice” in their part in regard to their adaptation to
the new community.
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While Wahlbeck strongly emphasises policies that have generated
racism in society Enneli and Modood (2005) focus on economic factors. Immigrants
in the new society, due to their flight from their home country, face economic
down turn that as one may expect, places them in a lower position within the
ladder of social structure in society. Recent developments in the field of
immigration policy have highlighted the need for economic mobility and a call
for participation of immigrants in the economic activity as an important factor
in the integration process. Economic exclusion of young people from minority
ethnic backgrounds in the UK is well documented in Enneli and Modood (2005).
While Enneli and Modood’s study has predominantly focused on the transnational of
young Kurds and Turks in Britain to adulthood, it provides considerable information
that one can utilize to understand the challenges they may have posed with
social and economic integration. Enneli and Modood argue that changes in
economic relations and the labour market are seen as disrupting existing
patterns of ethnic and gender segregation in the labour market. In general, while
lack of economic success of the Kurds and Turks has been considered as an
important factor to this disruption; they have also referred the existing disruption
and barrier to social integration to several factors such as discrimination,
the low level of education, living in poverty, lack of access to housing and
qualification, lower level of social protection, disparity of wealth and stigma.
From the study conducted by Enneli and Modood (2005) one can come to the
conclusion that economic and social progress must go hand in hand, and the
respective policies should reflect this partnership.
Along with economic mobility, social mobility of
immigrants and refugees have been considered by many scholars as an important factor
in the integration process. Social mobility of immigrants and refugees is
important the way that it facilitate integration process and it is believed
that any progress in social mobility of refugees and immigrants, to a large extent depends on the degree which refugees and immigrants can participate in the
labour market, simultaneously, ‘the experience of unemployment is usually
dependent on young people’s age, gender, ethnicity, qualification and their
families’ economic conditions’ (Enneli and Modood, 2005, p. 19). In the case of
integration of African families in Ireland almost similar patterns of
difficulties have been identified by Coakley and Mac Einri (2007). They argue
that the integration of African families in Ireland is subject to numerous
factors such as lack of employment, education, language barrier, housing and
racism related issues. In order to understand the
integration processes of Kurdish refugees in Ireland it is essential to take
into account, the factors that have been posed to the integration of African
families as it could be the case for Kurdish refugees.
Gallagher (2010) in
examining the integration policy in Ireland has investigated the integration trajectory
of Polish immigrants into the Irish society by classifying them as
transnational immigrants. This study is important first, because Polish
immigrants constitute a large number of immigrants in Ireland; the second
reason relates to the fact that Catholic background became a source of affinity
between Polish and Irish people which might not be the case for other minority
groups such as the Kurds. Gallagher draws on the argument of Malik (2005) and
Favel (2005) in that the ethnic minorities are not victims in need of state
assistance rather they are autonomous individuals that can choose, organise,
support and find their way of life. In such a situation immigrants do not require
to assimilate or to lose their language or cultural heritage. Gallagher has concluded
that Polish immigrants are able to establish their own niche which provides for
their needs in the integration process. He also stresses that it is within this
ability that Polish immigrants chose their own chaplains and followed by that,
other churches began to provide services in the Polish language. Thus, the ‘catholic church then facilitates the Polish
migrants’ integration into Irish society’ (Gallagher, 2010, p. 7) and it was to
became a network throughout which Polish immigrants could acquire information
with regard to employment, housing, services and etc. Since the religion has
plied a significant role in the integration of Polish migrants in Ireland; it
could be said that the religion factor has plied little role in integration of
other people with different faiths due to their lack of regular contact with
the established church in Ireland. And in some extend, in the case of part of
Kurdish refugees religion plies relatively in opposite to Gallagher found about
Polish immigrants. Gallagher’s perception
in regard to integration of refugees and minority groups seems to be inspired by
the laissez-faire idea that has assigned integration of minority groups to
their own responsibility. Thus, the issue of religion may have their role in
the life experiences and integration process of Kurdish refugees in Ireland
since most of Kurdish refugees in Ireland are not Christian and Catholic and
correlate themselves with Islam.
Question
This project is important as it draws attention to the potential
difficulties that Kurdish refugees may have experienced in a host country, such
as Ireland, and provides voices to a potentially marginalised section of Irish
society. The study is designed to address the following main question:
What are the social integration experiences of different groups of
Kurdish refugees in Ireland?
In
answering this question this study will gather relevant data and explore the
lived experiences of two groups of young Kurdish refugees in Ireland. It will seek
to investigate potential difficulties they might encounter in integrating into Irish
society. Those are two groups of Kurdish refugees in Ireland (see appendix 1),
the first group consists of a total population of 519 individual refugees who
departed from a third country (Iraq) and arrived in Ireland between 2000 and
2006, through the UN Refugee Programme and did not go through the asylum
procedure. They are considered to be more homogeneous and from lower
socio-economic background compared to the relatively heterogeneous group of
about 2500 Kurdish refugees who came from other parts of Kurdistan (Iran,
Turkey, Iraq, and Syria) between 1999 and 2010. The main similarities between
these two groups are that they both escaped from their home country due to
political reasons, religion and ethnic discrimination; though, the homogeneity
of the first group relates to the fact that they are all Kurds from Iran who
had fled to Iraq during the war between these two countries about 30 years ago
with almost the same political orientations. They have lived in subjugated
camps designated by Saddam’s regime in the middle of the desert close to Bagdad,
with little chance of economic prosperity. There is anecdotal evidence that the
first group, due to their homogeneity, are more self-centred and have little
contact with other minority groups or with the mainstream society in Ireland.
On the other hand, the heterogeneity of the second group of Kurdish refugees in
Ireland relates to their geopolitical boundaries which they belonging to. For
example there are Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, each with different
economic backgrounds, political orientations, and different dialects with
little contact with each other at home and in the host country.
Structure of Dissertation
Following this introduction, chapter
2 presents my theoretical framework which is relevant to this area of study. I
begin by looking at the UN convention as a legal framework for the protection
of refugees; then it outlines three types of refugees in Kunz perspectives: majority
identified refugees; events related refugees and self-alienated refugees,
derived from refugee theory. In order to gain more insight into the issues
related to the attachment of refugees I concentrate on the diaspora as a
theoretical tool. In both refugee theory and diaspora theory the refugees’
attachment to the host and native country has been delineated. These two parts
of theoretical framework are presented to analyse the relationship that the
Kurdish refugees in Ireland may have with both country of origin and also the
country of settlement. The concept of integration which informs my investigation
runs through the entire research project. It suggests that while the aim of
integration is to encourage immigrants to be an integral part of society with
equal rights, opportunities and obligations it does not free from criticism, proposes
the concept of common belonging as
an alternative model to the vacuum. Chapter 3 outlines the research methodology
used in this dissertation, thematic analysis utilised in order to answer the
main question, the general strategy used in this research rely on theoretical
proposition. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the findings of the study. The main themes
identified were, employment, citizenship, and identity/belonging; in this
chapter attempts have been made to expand of each identified theme. Chapter 5
has been devoted to assess the finding and limitation for this study. In the
last part of this study direction for future research will be presented.
Chapter 2: Conceptual and
Theoretical Framework
In the studies concerning the integration of young Kurdish refugees,
a multiple- approach is required; as this best compliments established theory
relating to refugees, diaspora and social integration which aids to elucidate
the processes to integration. My theoretical framework has begun by looking at
refugee theory and its definition and argues that the displacement of people is
most likely linked to conflict rather than a voluntary determination. This definition
is congruent with the Kurdish Refugees situations that have left their
countries and settled in Ireland. I further look at diaspora to examine the
relationship refugees have with both country of origin and country of
settlement. The concept of integration here helps to analyse the post-migration
situation of the refugees and migrants in the host country. Since the concept
of integration has been challenged in many ways the concept of common belonging
proposed as an alternative to deal with the issues related to migrants and
refugees. Despite challenges posed by the integration term, this study focuses
on integration in a sense of social inclusion or exclusion of Kurdish refugees
in Ireland.
Refugee theory
In the study of international
movement, the analysis of refugee flows and their determination has been in the
focus of migration specialist, sociologists, and demographers; while specialist
in international law, and some political scientists, in their study of refugee
flows focused more on consequences than determination (Salt, 1986). It is
generally assumed that the movement of people from a certain geographical
location to another is a voluntary determination. There is sufficient data that
shows the flow and increase in the numbers of refugees in the world depend on
and is due to war and conflict around the world rather than of voluntary
determination. The definition of refugee by UNHCR reflects the nature of
refugee with conflict. The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees was approved on the 28th of July 1951. This convention and
subsequent conventions such as 1967 protocol were in fact the cornerstones of
the rights of refugees. The convention defines a refugee as:
A person, who owing to a
well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, … or
who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former
habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear,
is unwilling to return to it (Wilkinson, 2001).
According
to UNHCR (2009) there are almost 42 million forcibly uprooted people world-wide;
from this number 16 million are refugees and asylum seekers. The refugees have
been forced to settle where they are generally unwanted. According to CSO
(Central Statistic Office), 420,000 non-Irish nationals have residing in
Ireland (CSO, 2007). The NCCRI states that, until 2006, from 199, 850 people
sought asylum in Europe but only 2% of applications were made in Ireland (4,310
people). The total numbers of recognised refugees in Ireland until the end of
2006 are 8500 people (NCCRI) and from 2007 to 2011 only 163 people have been
granted refugee status (ORAC, 2011). In
light of great human movement in the world a need for theoretical framework to
think about experiences of groups and individual migrants became a necessary
object. While migrant questions develop into an interesting subject for many
disciplines, however, to a considerable extent, attempts to produce refugee
theory, is rooted in sociology. For example, in classical theory of migration,
Ravenstein 1885 (cited in Salt, 1986) thinks that the ‘refugee movement is
multi-step’ or Lee 1966 (cited in Salt, 1986) which is argued that ‘refugees do
have to surmount intervening obstructs’. Peterson (1958) simply recognised two types
of refugees as forced and impelled and Zolberg (1989) calls to
develop a model based on analysis of global inequalities (Diner, 2008).
According to Wahlbeck (1999) many of the aforementioned theoretical
contributions are developed to distinguish the forced migration from the
voluntary migration. As it is apparent, the classical migration theories are basic
to offer a comprehensive understanding to migrants and refugees’ nature in
general and particularly to their orientations toward both the country of
origin and the receiving country. Since, refugees’ attitudes are immensely diverse;
their attitudes and behaviours became important issue in the study of
international migration. The weakness aspect of refugee studies is reflected in
several overviews of the research area. Robinson (1993, p. 6) depicts that most
refugee research ‘has been tactical, ad hoc, diffuse and reactive’ and
Gold (1992, p. 6) argues that ‘policy-oriented research has dominated the field
at the expense of independent, holistic scholarship’. Wahlbeck (2002) indicates
that despite almost all empirical studies describing the relatedness of
refugees with their home country, refugee studies are lacking in debates about ‘deterritorialisation’
or ‘transnationalism’. Relatively,
a more comprehensive refugee theory has been developed by Kunz in 1981; he in
addition to distinguishes between anticipatory and acute refugee movements,
argues that regardless of whether a refugee decides to leave his/her country of
origin by an anticipatory flight or in acute refugee situation, refugees in
their social relationship to the population of their home country which they
leave behind appears to fall into three categories derive from refugees’
attitudes towards both country of origin and the host country (Wahlbeck, 1999). The
three categories of refugees that Kunz identified are (a) majority
identified refugees, which refers to those refugees who have strong attachment
to their homeland and the people from their country of origin. Kunz argues that
refugees who fall into this category are those whose opposition to political
and social events at home is shared by their compatriots. Both refugees and
those who remain in home are called majority identified refugees. In
addition to this, Kunz notes that ‘…these refugees identify themselves
enthusiastically with the nation, though not with its government’ (Kunz,
1981, p. 43) they also fall into the majority identified categories. As it is
obvious from Wahlbeck study of Kurdish refugees, first, almost all Kurdish
refugees identified themselves with Kurdistan rather than of for example Iran,
Iraq, Turkey or Syria when they were asked about their homeland country. Second,
Kurdish refugees in diaspora with a few exceptions, are strongly involved with
political groups in the country of origin (Wahlbeck, 1999) and they also
strongly engage with the events and celebrations such as Newroz (Kurdish New
Year) in the host countries to mark their Kurdish identity. These indicate that
the Kurdish refugees, who have
fled from Kurdistan, on one hand, reject the existing political order in
which divided Kurdistan into four parts, and on the other hand, it reveals
their immense attachment to homeland. In either case Kurdish refugees meet the
criteria of majority identified refugee as far as they have maintained strong
links to Kurdistan (b) Events related Refugees are those who are alienated
from their country of origin due to events preceding the refugee situation or
due to past discrimination that embittered the refugees’ attitude to their
fellow citizens. Kunz believes that individuals in this group face an
ambivalent situation in the way that they have a strong desire to be identified
as part of the nation, and subsequent realisation of their rejection by the
nation or part of it. Refugees who have fled their country of origin because of
racial and religious discrimination fall into this category. The majority of
Kurdish refugees have left their country because of racial, political and religious
discrimination (c) self-alienated refugees which refers to those
refugees who alienated themselves for personal reasons such as stigma attached
to them or their families or often due to their sexual orientation such as gay
and lesbian, rather than explicitly because of discrimination policy (1981, p.
44).
In line with Kunz typology the majority
identified refugee and event-related refugee categories can be
applied to a significant proportion of the current Kurdish refugees population,
as the ‘Kurds have been forced to flee the various conflicts in Kurdistan’ (Wahlbeck,
1999, p. 1). In this study I am going to analysis Kurdish situations within the
framework of Kunz theory of refugee.
In theorising “refugee”, however, different approaches have been developed. For
example Wahlbeck (1999) portrays refugees’ affections and attachment to the
country of origin through notions relating to diaspora. Wahlbeck (1999) noted
that, Zolberg, Suhrke and Aguayo (1989) in their typological approach to
refugee, identify refugees as activist targets or victims. However, Richmond
inspired by structuration theory within sociology and repeatedly in 1988, 1993,
and 1994 ‘suggests an elaborate typology of several forms of proactive and reactive
migrations’ (Walhbeck, 1999). While
different sociologists have approached immigrants and refugees in different ways,
Wahlbeck (1999) states that there are authors such as Stein (1981a) and Vasquez
(1989) who are specifically interested in the procedural aspect of integration
by refugees into the host country. In view of the fact that refugee theory,
presented by Kunz, provides significant explanation to the refugee’s
orientations in terms of their attitudes toward both the society of origin and
the receiving society, it is argued that the concept of diaspora can give a deeper
understanding of the social reality in which refugees live.
Diasporas
The
notion of diaspora has different meanings and sometimes is applied with negative
and unpleasant connotations. The Greeks applied it to mean migration and
colonisation, while the term for example for Kurdish, Jewish, Palestinian and Armenian who de-territorialised
from their place of birth, understand it in more brutal terms. Diaspora signified
collective trauma, banishment, when one dreams of homeland but lives in exile
and maintains strong collective identities. The term diaspora was originally
used to describe the Jewish community who were forcibly dispersed from their
homeland; thus, it can be argued that forcible dispersal is one of the main criteria
for diaspora (Wahlbeck, 1999). The concept of diaspora today is applied to any
community which in one way or another has a history of migration (Marienstras,
1989 and Tololyan, 1996 cited in Wahlbeck, 1998). Brah (1996) argues that the notion of diaspora
is associated with journey but at the same time she indicates that not all
journeys are considered as diaspora if it is not end with settling down and
putting root in another place. In discourse about diaspora, she further argues
that, the question is not about who travels but when, why and under what circumstances
a group or individual leaves a particular place. It seems that Brah by invoking
the reason for leaving has attempted to separate forced from voluntary
migration. Brah in her typology of diaspora makes
differences between the different types of journeys, each with its own
particular history that accordingly made diasporic formation. The first group consists
of European diaspora through conquest and colonisation, the second group
constitutes of slave or industrial labour diasporas who were captured and
removed from their home such as Indian and African Diasporas. The third group
are people who have had to desert their home country as a result of expulsion
and persecution or they may have been forced to flee because of political
reasons, such as refugees and asylum seekers in modern days. For Brah, it is ‘the economic, political and
cultural dimensions forms of migrancy that link these component journeys
through a confluence of narratives as it is lived and re-lived, produced,
reproduced and transformed through individual as well as collective memory and
rememory’ (Brah, 1996, p. 182). Interestingly,
Clifford (1994 cited in Alicia, 2004, p. 26), asserts, it is difficult to
theorise the concept of diaspora because it is not easy to avoid the ‘slippage
between diaspora as a theoretical concept, diasporic ‘’discourses’’ and
distinct historical experiences’. In addition to this, he argues that because
diaspora does not occur as a result of a single explanation but owing to
multiple reasons, theorising the concept of diaspora meets more difficulties
and becoming a complicated task (Clifford cited in Brah, 1996). Brah suggests that:
The concept of diaspora should be
understood in terms of historical contingent ‘genealogies’ in the Foucauldian
sense; that is an ensemble of investigative technologies that historicise the
different diasporas, and analyse their relationality across the fields of
social relations, subjectivity and identity.
(Brah, 1996, p. 180).
In recent years, the concept of
diaspora has been widely used as a theoretical framework in analysing
transnational social relations in the study of international migration. This
research follows Safran (1991) in examining the attachment of immigrants to
both their country of origin and their country of settlement. Safran (1991)
outlines a number of criteria for defining such refugees/immigrants: the person
or people should be displaced from their country of origin and settle into two
or more different regions, they should sustain the memory of their past and
believe they shall not fully integrate into the host society. Thus, they have
certain tangible, but also intangible attachments to their home country; they
regard their ancestral homeland as their true and ideal home (Safran, 1981).
Clifford argues that Safran’s definition of diaspora is too strict and omits
many insistences that are defined “diaspora”. Cohen (1997) also put forward the
argument that diaspora is associated with the victim and suffering. He
constructs a typology that pivots the definition of diaspora within the
historical experiences of specific ethnic group; for example he correlates the
African and Armenian with victim and Indian with imperial. Cohen like Safran
and Brah stipulates a number of conditions that he believes are necessary for
applying the term diaspora to a community; for instance, they have to have had
a single traumatic event that coincides with diasporal, the creating of
imagined homelands, voluntary and involuntary movement of people, having
collective memories and common identity with co-ethnic members in other
countries. Wahlbeck (1999) has
invoked the concept of diaspora as a critical notion in order to understand the
influence of social structures on Kurdish refugees during integration processes.
He articulates the concept of diaspora as a framework that conceptualises dual
orientation towards both the country of origin and the country of settlement.
Wahlbeck focuses on the concept of diaspora to better understand the
relationship refugees have with both their countries of origin and also with
their host societies. In keeping with Wahlbeack’s conceptualisation of
‘diaspora’, this research will employ a diasporic perspective so as to
comprehend and explain aspects of integration by the Kurdish community within
Ireland. In the context of this study the term diaspora is considered generally
to describe involuntary displacement of people. Hence, Kurdish refugees in Ireland,
who were expelled from Kurdistan, for the most part, fall into the
categorisation presented by Safran. While the notion of ‘diaspora defines the
experiences of displacement, processes of transnationalism, salience of
pre-migration social network, cultures, politics and capital’ (Sheffer, 1986;
Safran, 1991; Cliffrod, 1994; Cohen, 1997 cited in Wahlbeck, 1998, p. 11), the
concept of integration deals with the post-migrant social network of immigrants
in the receiving society as well as the social, political and cultural aspects
of immigrants which will be defined in the context of the integration process. Thus,
in order to comprehend more of the life experiences of refugees in the host
country, the concept of social integration can be an illustrative tool to
analyse Kurdish integration in Ireland.
Social Integration
In
dealing with immigrants, many societies have proposed integration as an
alternative model to assimilation and segregation as both of them have negative
connotations. While assimilation relates to discourses about cultural concept,
integration broadly is a debate about socio-political issue and the main topic
in question is how a group or an individual can be part of the wider society,
socially, politically and economically. Thus, the goal of integration is to
encourage immigrants to be an integral part of society with equal rights,
opportunities and obligations the same as the rest of society, irrespective of
racial/ethnic distinctions. Looking at integration in this study predominantly
refers to that particular aspect of integration in which minority groups are treated
equally and at the same time a deliberate attempt has been made to avoid
considering integration as a theoretical framework for analysing; rather this
study used the concept of integration as a tool for investigating the social
integration meaning social inclusion and belonging of refugees. The main reason
refers to the complexity of integration which poses enormous challenges to the
concept of integration. Dysfunction of integration as a theory is related to
the variation in the outcomes of the process that leads to the emanation of the
multifaceted understanding of the term. The concept of integration for example,
in the view of a dominant majority is to create of a ‘we’ who belong and ‘the
others’ who do not belong, (Schierup, 1987; Miles, 1993; Ekholm, 1994 cited in
Wahlbeck, 1999). For some others integration implies inclusion, equality and
belonging; for Parekh (2005) integration is not as innocent as it seems; he
rather, sees integration as a process, which the responsibility to integration
is always on the immigrants rather the host society. In this way, it is the
minority groups who have to integrate into the mainstream society. Despite
the variation in understanding concerning integration, there is however, an increased
consensus among many scholars such as Myer (1999), Barkan (1995), Wahlbeck
(1999), Alba and Nee (1997), Zhou (1997), and Berry (2005), that integration
occurs structurally, culturally, socially and identificationally. That means a
person can hold his/her distinct identity and at the same time structurally be
part of the host society. Structural integration also indicates ‘the concerted
involvement of individuals with various aspects of a group and the organisation
of an individual’s ties to other people’ (Myer, 1999, p. 775). Accordingly,
integration process comprises of a series of activities in which both native
and ethnic groups are involved; that the person in the ethnic group learns the
language of the host society and becomes
bilingual; that his/her activities will not be limited within their own
community rather they will engage broadly with people from and within the
mainstream society; thy will participate in civil organisations such as labour
unions, NGO’s ; and as part of political integration they will affiliate with
political activities, that as part of economic integration they will embrace a
professional position within the economic activities and enhance their economic
mobility. The abovementioned conditions for integration depend on the degree in
which a society is opens to accept differences (Parekh, 2005). In spite of
the fact that the structural aspect of integration has been accepted by many
scholars as an ideal form of integration, the integration is not without critics
and it has been challenged for its inadequacy in offering a comprehensive analysis
to the whole aspect of immigration’s life in exile. Academics such as Parekh
(1995) and Barkan (1995) while clearly outlining the advantages of integration,
believe that integration like assimilation is not free from critics and suffers
from several limitations. Parekh (1995) stats that integrationists like
assimilationists are intensely suspicious of differences and hostile to
separation. In the course of the integration process, the person in question
may be integrated socially, culturally and politically. At the same time some
aspect of his/her identities remain intact that consequently emerges in the
form of a barrier to the integration process; for example individuals in
minority groups may be eager to marry within their own community or they may be
keen not to extend their friendship
beyond their own communities. In such a situation some aspects of the
immigrant’s life will not be open to integration; therefore the integration
could entail experiences of marginality and produce a sense of alienation. In
this circumstance an individual may feel uncomfortable with either the people
who from dominant group or other communities. Parekh (2005) while increasingly
critical of integration as a way to conceptualise the relations between
immigrants and the receiving society invokes the concept of common belonging
as an alternative way to examine such relationships from different
perspectives. Parekh (2005) argues that the language of common belonging and citizenship is far more helpful
method for analysing and
understanding the migrant relationship with the receiving society. The reason is
that in the context of common belonging and citizenship
discourses, debates are more articulated in terms of equal citizens and common
interest. Unlike integration and assimilation, the dominant question in common
belonging is how an individual from minority groups can be bound to the
rest of society by means of mutual commitment and attachment.
The concept of common belonging refers to general feelings that link different
fragments of society together based on sharing interests such as well-being and
peace for the future. The notion of common belonging can also benefit from the
concepts of assimilation and integration. In Parekh’s (2005) view, common
belonging and citizenship also requires some level of assimilation and integration in the way that -in common
belonging- the immigrants should not be excluded and marginalized; simultaneously
–in citizenship- immigrants and refugees
are liable to accept the core values of the host society. It seems that the
axis of common belonging is the concept of citizenship in which immigrants are
fully availing of rights and privileges and at the same time puts certain
responsibilities on immigrants and refugees to respect the norms, customs and
values of the host country in order to help them in sharing values and common
interests to ensure social cohesion. Apart from common belonging, in many
western societies such as US who have accepted the permanent presence of
immigrants with diverse ethnicity, religion and languages, the term
incorporation is used to reflect the integration of minority groups into
society. The term incorporation in terms of its procedure is similar to
integration that consists of social, political, cultural and economic
dimensions. The underpinning intellectual understanding behind this recognition
is that they have acknowledged that their society transformed into a
multi-ethnic society, that a need for achieving an agreeable mutual acceptance
is necessary in order to accommodate all. While, generally there are no major
differences between integration and incorporation in terms of the procedural
aspects some scholars such as Rumbaut (1997) and Zolberg, (1997) state that the
incorporation model of integration emerged as a middling way between
assimilation that lost its legitimacy either as a policy goal or analytical
concept and multiculturalism. They also distinguished between multiculturalism
as a two way process with incorporation which they believed to be a one way
process and argue that the core dictum of incorporation is that the immigrants
should be incorporated into the society to which they move. In such situations
the host society relatively remains intact (DeWind and Kasinitz, 1997;
Schmitter Heisler, 2000). However, in DeWind and Kasinitz, (1997) opinion, in
the corporation process immigrants will adapt to the host society, but at the
same time immigrants are having an impact on the lives of the natives as well,
This is a process ultimately results in a ‘remaking of immigrants and of America’
(DeWind and Kasinitz, 1997, p. 1098). Goldberg (1994) describes incorporation as
‘dual transformation’ and argues that the incorporation process undermines
marginalisation ‘rather, it seeks to undermine and alter from within the
dominant, controlling, confining, and periphrastic values of the cultural
dominant’ (Goldberg, 1994, p. 9). The concept of integration has various dimensions
including social, economic, political and cultural. Despite numerous critics of
integration, throughout this study I will focus on social integration as a tool
to analyse the life experience of Kurdish refugees in Ireland in terms of their
inclusion and exclusion. In the remained of this chapter I will therefore focus
more on the notion of social integration. Social integration
is a complex concept that is not a consistent and coherent process and there
are many divergent paths involve. In general, it is believed that a high level
of social integration in any form can promote a higher level of social,
psychological, and physical well-being (House, Umberson, and Landis, 1989 cited
in Myers, 1999). In order to more adequately conceive the complexity and
dynamic of the integration processes, the term integration should be seen as a
social process not specifically confined to legal procedures in which the
technical vocabularies such as fair, effective, lawful, efficient are prevailing
languages. However, it could be argued that the term integration can benefit
from the language and technical vocabulary in discussion. The concept of ‘social
integration has been used to understand both social structure and individual behaviour.
On the individual level, social integration generally is defined as structural
or affective interconnectedness with others and with social institutions. ‘It
encompasses patterns of social interaction and participation and attitudes
regarding institutions and relationships’ (Voydanoff, 2004, p. 279). The
structural component of social integration incorporates a behavioural component
in which individuals participate in formal organizations and informal social
relationship for example, formal volunteering and spending time with neighbours
and friends. Immigrants in arrival to the new country feel strange and alienated
from the people and environment; and therefore they lack effective social relationships
both with formal and informal social institutions and the rest of society. Consequently
they are increasingly in need of comprehensive care particularly in terms of social protection in the forms of
social welfare to ensure a minimum level of financial security. ‘Social support
is important as a resource to be tapped during stressful life events or
transitional periods (Thoits, 1995). ‘Integration as a two way process puts
certain responsibilities both on the host country and immigrants; at this stage
the government responsibility is to assist the groups or individuals who may
not receiving assistance from informal social networks. Immigrants in the new society suffer
from several social, cultural, political and other disadvantages which hinder
their integration and settlement. They are liable to much misunderstanding and
negative stereotyping (Parekh, 2005). Many immigrants are unfamiliar with the cultural
aspect of the host country; they need time to acquire the necessary cultural
competence and in the meantime they lack a coherent voice. In order to overcome
these difficulties and so that the immigrant’s voice can be heard, the creation
of civil society organizations seems to be necessary. Helping migrants to
create their social organization
is an important step so that it works as an efficient mechanism that links
migrants to the rest of society and would help the voice of migrants to be
heard through lobbying, organizing cultural events or as a vehicle for
political action.
To sum up, the
first and second parts of this chapter discussed refugee and diaspora theory.
Both terms used to examine how Kurdish refugees fit into these categories and
if they are fit how it affect the integration process in the receiving society.
It is argued that the movement of refugees is not voluntary determination rather;
refugees left their country of origin due to political, racial and ethnic discrimination.
This section also states that refugees who are flee from their country due to
mentioned reasons fall into Kunz typology of refugee that is to say Majority
Identify Refugee and Even Related Refugee. The second section of this chapter
focuses on diaspora as a theoretical framework to understand refugees’
orientation toward their country of origin and the host country. While I promoted
a number of classical theories of diaspora such as Cohen (1997), Clifford
(1994) and Brah (1996), I invoked Safran’s (1991) theory of diaspora as an
applicable theory to understand Kurdish refugees attitude toward their country
of origin and the host country. I
concluded that Safran’s criteria for diasporas is more likely parallel to the
circumstance that Kurdish refugees have in exile. The last part of this chapter
discusses social integration. At the outset of this section I argued that
social integration will not be used as theoretical framework rather as a tool
to investigate social integration in terms of inclusion and exclusion. The main
reason for that related to the fact that it is difficult to conceptualising integration
because of the variation in the outcome
of the process of integration as it has been interpreted in different ways. For
the most part, I taken the interpretation that Parekh (2005) forwarded for
social integration. He despite of criticising status duo of integration argues
the language of common belonging and citizenship discourse is far more helpful
in discourse about integration of refugees into the society. In the light of
this conceptual and theoretical framework the next chapter presents the
research methodology employed to answer the main question in this study.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
This chapter begins by presenting a
research strategy adapted to analyse life experiences of Kurdish refugees in
Ireland and to examine Irish state responses to the need of migrants in general
and Kurdish refugees in particular. It then proceeds by discussing the
sampling, data collection instruments and methods of data analysis. Follow by
that, this chapter concludes with a preliminarily reflection of design and
consideration of ethical issues.
Research design
This project is designed as an
exploratory case study. Yin (2009) holds that case studies are the preferred
method when questions such as ‘how’ and ‘why’ are posed, and this method does
not follow a strict procedure when compared with other research methods.
Reasons for using case study strategy in this research refers to the fact that
in studying Kurdish refugees in Ireland we are dealing with three important and
exclusive issues that makes case study research strategy an appropriate method
strategy: first, a complex subject such as life experiences of Kurdish refugees
that requires an extensive and ‘in-depth’ investigation; second, a real life
event of a distinctive group of people and third,
we are dealing with a contemporary phenomenon rather than a historical event. The
other reasons for taking a comparative case study method is that the case study
research helps to provide a better understanding of complex issues and it also
broadens the knowledge gained from previously conducted research. Case studies
are limited to a certain number of events or conditions, which is one of its weaknesses,
but at the same time case studies help the researcher to focus on a certain
number of people, which leads to more detailed, through information. Yin (2009)
defines the case study research method as an empirical inquiry that
investigates a contemporary phenomenon within real-life contexts. Using case
study strategy to investigate life experiences of Kurdish refugees is also in exact
accordance with conditions that many prominent academists have presented so far
for studying single, complex and unique cases. For example Merriam (1998),
Stake (1995), Ragin (1989), all agree about the appropriateness of case study in
dealing with single, complex and unique cases. Examples of succesful case study research presented by Yin, distiguishes
the case study research method as different to other methods by advancing three
conditions. Consequently these conditions can then act as a guide to
determining the most suitable type of method used in the research field. The
first condition deals with the type of reseach question, the second deals
with the extent of controls the investigator has over actual behaviour and the
last condition deals with the degree of focus; on contemporary as opposed to
historical events (Yin, 2009, p. 8-11). At
the same time one criticism of much of the literature on single case study is that
a single case study lacks in ‘analytical power’ and accuracy. Some other
scholars also believe that it is unlikely to generalise to a large population. Taking comparative case
study strategy in this research helps to avoid from inaccurate results that may
come out of a single case study (Verschuren, 2003). Case study, however,
dispite its strength, came under criticism for numerous reasons. Critics of
case study research, believe that the study of a small number of cases can
offer no reliable and substantial conclusion from the findings as there are
only one or two cases being studied (Miles, 1979). Some have argued that
information from case studies inherentely lacks objectivity. Yin in support of
case study argues that ‘case study aim is not to generalise cases statistically
rather it is used to expand and generalise theory’ (Yin, 2009, p. 15). It is in the light of this fact
that theoretical propositions are discussed in chapter two and throughout the
dissertation. The bases of theoretical propositions in this research are (a) the state policies can have greater
role in the process of integration of Kurdish refugees and immigrants in
Ireland, (b) the social structure of Kurdish minority group are factors in
integration process.
Access and sampling
The sample
used in this research is two groups of young male and female Kurdish refugees
aged between 18 to 35 years. The reason for choosing those people within this specific
age bracket is because young Kurdish refugees between 18 to 35 years old
constitute a large number of Kurdish refugees in Ireland. In addition, this age
group is thought to be an active group within the Kurdish community in Ireland.
However, the desire to include both genders is related to two major factors;
first the fact that it is not customary within that Kurdish tradition to have a
patriarchal social structure. Social organisation more likely has its own effect
on the integration process in the host country. The second factor linked to
issues of validity and accuracy, explaining that in the case of including both
genders, it is more rational to generalise the research finding to more Kurdish
people in Ireland. Having worked within the Kurdish Community
Organisation and Irish/Kurdish Solidarity Centre in Dublin, I have had access
to Kurdish refugees in Ireland. The Kurdish Community Organisation and
Irish/Kurdish Solidarity Centre are two non-profit organisations that have been
established by a number of Kurdish activists in 2004. Despite poor efficiency
in practice, the core objectives of these organisations, as manifested in their
constitutions, are ranged from providing support and advice to the Kurdish community
in regard to their rights and duties in Ireland, to integrate the Kurdish
community into the Irish society, organising events and to raise the voice of
Kurdish women in Ireland. These organisations in fact have meant that I have
met the majority of Kurdish refugees in Ireland. For example, I have had the
chance to meet with the coordinator of the Kurdish community who has
wide-ranging information on Kurdish refugees. I have also met with a range of
single refugees through acquaintances of acquaintances in a snow-ball like
pattern. Snowball sampling is a type of non-probability sampling used to
identify hidden/ and hard-to-reach populations such as people with HIV, homeless,
prostitute, drug user and so on (Heckathorn, 1997). The initial reason for choosing
snowball sampling in this study refers to the difficulties that the author has
had in reaching individual Kurdish refugees due to the issues ranging from the
issue of security that most Kurdish refugees are taking into account in such
situations, to the issues of time and cost. Almost all Kurdish refugees in
Ireland are political refugees as a result they are very circumspect in
approaching people who are not known to them. This issue makes it hard to ask
them for information without referral. My initial contact with those refugees
who came to Ireland through the UN Referees Programme took place during my
visit during the summer 2006, to the Sligo city, where most Kurdish refugees,
from UN categories, in Ireland are settled, which was organised by the Kurdish/
Irish Solidarity Centre in Ireland. The target populations of this research
are separated by two categories created for this research, namely the UN[1]
and the Singles[2].
The UN category will include 2 females and 2 males. The Single category will
include 8 individuals from four different countries namely, Turkey, Iran, Iraq
and Syria; one female and one male from each country. In the process of case selection
attention have been paid mainly to the qualitative aspect of the units rather
than to quantitative features as the important issues regarding sample size is
not the number of cases but how to select sample cases.
Data collection instruments
The main
data collection tool of this study is semi-structured interviews. In order to collect relevant data related to the
topic in question the mentioned theoretical propositions in research design
subsection, direct the research to conducting semi-structured interviews with
participants by providing them with a list of questions. Topics would include;
how are they generally experiencing life in Ireland, would they prefer greater
friendship with Irish and how many Irish friends they have, do they participate
in any social, cultural and political institutions, and how citizenship status
can have an effect on their life? While interviews have been designed to pursue
my line of inquiry it also put forward friendly and open ended questions.
During designing question guide I was confronted with greater
question of how to design a list of questions in order to answer the main
question in this research. In order to overcome this difficulty the initial
step was to identify and extract the concepts and ideas that largely emerged
from literature review (Chapter One) and conceptual framework (Chapter Two).
The first category of these concepts and terms that were related to the
literature review consist of inclusion; exclusion; discrimination; racism;
integration; the failed integration policy in Ireland in regard to immigrants
and refugees; multiculturalism, interculturalism; cultural differences; social,
political and economic integration. The second set of themes is these themes
and concepts that have emerged from the conceptual and theoretical framework.
In this phase I divided the themes into three general themes as of refugees,
diaspora and social integration; then I brought about a list of themes for each
of the mentioned concepts. The themes which I have extracted from refugee
theory are consisting of definition of refugee; forced migration; refugees
orientation toward both country of origin and host country. The most important themes
and repetitious phrases that have emerged from diaspora are: deterritoriation;
collective memories; homeland; exile; collective identities; Kurdish refugees
in Ireland; expelled; displacement; transnationalism. And the concepts and ideas
which were identified within the social integration were: equal rights;
citizenship; barrier to integration; belonging to the society; social
protection and social organisation.
By conducting interviews it is
possible to make ‘balances between the past, present and future perspective’
(Kvale, 1997, p. 26). The most disadvantage use of the interview is that it is
time-consuming and demanding both for the researcher and for the participant
(Ladson-Billin, 2004). For the purpose of time management and for practicality
a limited set of questions have been presented and each interview lasts for 30
to 35 minutes. This was depends on how much information each individual
participant provides, relevant to the subject being researched.
Data Analysis
In
order to analyse data obtained from each individual during the interview, thematic
analysis is used to congregate patterns of refugee’s understanding of their
new host society, in particular their experiences, ideas, feelings and expressions.
‘Thematic analysis focuses on identifiable themes and patterns of living and/or
behaviour’ (Arondon, 1994). The next step is to classify and make a list of the
pattern of experiences, feeling, idea vocabulary and meaning; and then to identify
data related to classification patterns and to combine related patterns into
sub-themes. ‘Data analysis consists of examining, categorising, tabulating,
testing, or otherwise recombining evidence; to draw empirically based
conclusions’ (Yin, 2009: 126). Despite
having all data relevant to the subject in question, it might be impracticable
to reach the desired conclusion without an appropriate strategy for analysing
data. Yin suggests four general strategies in which he believes ‘without such
strategies case study analysis will proceed with difficulties’ (Yin, 2009, p.
137). These strategies consist of theoretical propositions, developing a
case description, using both qualitative and quantitative data and examining
rival explanations. Huberman and Miles (1994) argue that in the absence of an
appropriate strategy, the best way to start analysing is to ‘play with data’
(from Yin, 2009). The
general strategy used in this study is maintained through relying on
theoretical propositions. (Yin, 2009) This general strategy will assist the
follow up relating to the theoretical proposition and be specifically relevant
to my research questions. The major propositions which rely on the main
research questions in this study are a guide to the case study analysis and
help to focus on certain data that is relevant to the research questions (Yin,
2009). As this study is informed by ‘adaptive theory’ (Layder, 1998 cited in
Gilbert, 2001) rather than ‘grounded theory’, ‘the process of coding can begin
with sensitising concepts and ideas’ (Layder, 1998 cited in Gilbert 2001, p.
306). At this stage, the analysis will proceed with ‘rigorous empirical
thinking’ along with evidence obtained during data collection process so
as to guarantee care and exactness throughout the case study analysis.
There are many ways to analyse interviewee’s experiences and thematic
analysis is one such way (Mahrer, 1988; Spradley, 1979; Taylor & Bogdan,
1984). The thematic analysing procedure proceeds in the following manner. Firstly,
once I had collected the data from interviewees I had to transcribe conversations
and sometimes to translate the interviews as a numbers of interviews took place
in native Kurdish language. Secondly, from the transcript conversation that I
had with interviewees, following carefully reading all data again and again, I
have extracted pattern of experiences of Kurdish refugees which emerged from
the frequency of codes or code combination. Thirdly, I collected all data that
I deemed to be relevant to already identified patterns of experiences.
Fourthly, I combined related patterns into subthemes. Themes are defined as
unite that are derived from patterns such as ‘conversation topic, vocabulary,
recurring activities, meanings, feeling, or folk saying and proverbs’ (Taylor
and Bogdan 1989, p. 131). In order to form a comprehensive picture from
collective experiences, I follow Leininger (1985) way of defining themes; he suggests
that themes that are emerged from information stories have to be pieced together.
In the fifth and final step a valid definition was given to every chosen
pattern. This has been done by referring back to literature in chapter one.
Ethical issues
There
are a numbers of ethical issues that had been taken into consideration in this
project. This research is about
integration processes of Kurdish refugees, therefore the investigation requires
a number of specific ethical considerations; the reason for this relates to first,
I am dealing with people in a position of vulnerability as all my informants
are refugees; second, I am dealing with political refugees as most of the Kurdish refugees are recognised as having
escaped from persecution in Iran, Syria and Turkey and thus, are considered
political refugees; therefore in the course of conducting field work
considerations have been taking into account to maintain the confidentiality
and anonymity of each respondent and to assure them that whatever question I
ask is merely for research purposes. To add to this, all the participants have
been fully informed about the purpose and procedures of the research. Also I
assure them that the information will not be made available to anyone who is
not directly involved in the study. The anonymity principle has been taken into
consideration and the names of the participants were not revealed throughout
the study. However, I provided each
participant with consent form to insure that all participants know their rights
to confidentiality and to withdrawal.
The safety of participants also an important issue that has been taken
into consideration. Madison (2005, p. 111) argues that ‘the researcher must
make every effort to ensure that the work does not harm safety, dignity or
privacy to the group or those near to them.
In spite of all precisions that have been taking into account
during data collection procedure the interviews process did not continue as
smoothly as I thought so. The first problem was to formulate the questions in
the way to (a) make it easy for participant to understand the concept used
within the question and (b) to design the questions in the way to attain what I
am looking for in order to answer the main questions. As a number of interviews
did not carried on in English as a result the problem have arose when I was
attempting to interpret concepts to the native Kurdish language. In order to
overcome these problems I, first simplified each question without changing its
content, and second I used Kurdish dictionary in order to find an appropriate
word for each concept that I deemed unfamiliar for participants.
In
regard to my position in this research, I would recall the time when I used to
work in a Kurdish/Irish Solidarity Centre, where I closely witnessed the
specific problems of hundreds of the Kurds while they adapted to their the new
way of life in a foreign country. I, as a Kurd, could understand their
difficulties and was inspired to take a thorough insight into the nature of integration.
Since working in close contact and providing individuals with assistance, I
earned the trust of people whom I advised. They felt free to share their daily
problems emanating from their failure to integrate into Irish society. Working
in such a role has provided me with a valuable experience in dealing with
people and their needs, which may be marginalized or in positions of
vulnerability, in a professional and confidential manner. I shall now move on
to present the findings of this study.
Chapter 4: Kurdish Integration and Life experiences in
Ireland
This study set out to explore the social integration
experiences of UN and Single Kurdish refugees in light of recent Irish state
policies. The main themes emerging from the research literature and my
fieldwork were citizenship, employment and belonging. In the first section, I
focus on citizenship as a factor in the process of integration and argue that while
component parts of citizenship such as civil, political and social rights of refugees
and immigrants can be understood as part of a process that lead immigrants and
refugees to integrate, a comprehensive integration is possible when the issues
of racist, structural inequality and discrimination within the host society have
been tackled through the state intervention in integration process of minority
groups. This is important to note that I linked the concept of citizenship to integration
in the way that the precognitions for both terms are based on rights and duties
and for the most part those conditions are parallel with each other. In such
cases citizenship was constituted as the starting place for integration
(Fanning, 2009). The second section looks at the employment as another
important factor in the process of integration. The main focus in this section is to analysis
relationship that employment and integration as a process have on each other
and the connection that both terms have with the issues of racist and
discrimination and finally the possible effect of this relationship upon integration
of Kurdish refugees in Ireland. The last section dedicated to identity related
issue when it comes to Kurdish refugees and diasporas; factors that had
profound effect on the attitude of Kurdish refugees and immigrants in regard to
the country of origin and the host country and finally on their integration
process in exile. The argument in this section is that while integration of
Kurdish refugees heavily affected by obstacles that emerged from the status quo
of state policies; in certain degree, factor such as refugees’ attitudes toward
their country of origin and their attachment to the people from their home
country, can shape and direct their integration and possibly hindered integration
process of Kurdish refugees in Ireland.
Citizenship
and democratic values
The concept of
citizenship has a long history and dates back to the city state in Athens. The
contemporary notion of citizenship has far more implications than of Athenian
understanding of the term. The major axis of this section predominantly based
on the concept of contemporary citizenship which is developed under social
contract theory in terms of right and duties; an association that has been
mentioned in the Department of Justice as a precondition for integration (see chapter
1). These conditions are congregated in the form that ‘integration is a two way
process’, it depicts that on the one hand, the state is responsible for civil,
political, and social security of refugees and immigrants; what Marshall (1992)
considered as the states obligations toward its citizens, and on the other hand,
it is refugees and immigrants responsibility to adapt to the norms, cultures
and values of the host society. Thus, there is a close proximity between the
preconditions that have been presented both for citizenship and integration
processes. Therefore, it is persuasive to assume that the component parts of
citizenship such as civil, political and social rights of refugees and
immigrants can be understood as part of a process that leads the minority
groups to integrate into mainstream society. At the same time, I argue that it
is not the entire story of integration; rather it has various connotations as Hanao
a (pseudonym) Female refugee from UN categories describes citizenship in
following manner:
Hanao:
Some people think that citizenship means having passport and being accepted as
a member of society in official documents. For me citizenship means more than
having passport but it means a situation in which people within the society
accept me within their community.
In began with
the quote, it is palpable to understand that citizenship meaning is far more
beyond the legal vocabulary such as for example civil, political and social
security, rather it has wider implication that extends its meaning to the moral
obligation in regard to immigrants and refugees. Explaining that, while the constituent
parts of citizenship help the process of integration to proceed, at the same
time, it is not sufficient for future social cohesion if it is not accompanied
with paying an adequate attention to, what Boucher (2008) say, culture,
ethnicity, language, religion, family and morality of refugees and immigrants.
Given fewer attention to or ignore any of the mentioned elements in discourse
about integration of diverse refugees and immigrants can promote racist in the
society. Therefore, in addition to technical and legal vocabulary such as
civil, political and social rights as a component parts of citizenship; racist
related issues can be considered as a vital discourse both for and lack of
integration of minority groups. For the most part, the problems that refugees
have faced in integration process in the host society, in spite of their
citizenship entitlement, are racist related issue which is embedded within the
state policies; a type of policy that see refugees and immigrant merely through
the lens of economy (Fanning, 2006) (see chapter 1). The Irish state’s laissez-faire
approach (Boucher, 2008) to refugees and immigrants is a strategy in which
refugees and immigrants are responsible for their integration. In the context
of such as strategy, refugees and immigrants who are in a position of
vulnerability unable to find ways to integrate into the society without state
intervention in the process (Gilligan, 2006),
by
challenging structural inequalities experienced by refugees and immigrant in
the society and by combating racism. The evident of structural inequality and
discrimination can be seen in what Heval, a male refugee from Single group says
about integration:
Heval:
I
can be part of society when there is a room to do so, for example by work and
participation in the wider society. And I thing for now it is far from the
reality because despite having qualification in media and communication and
despite the fact that I have Irish citizenship, I have to work in restaurants.
SM
[Shamal Mirza]: Why?
Heval:
Because I think the priority is always given to the Irish people, though, I
legally have rights same the people from the set of society.
In this
statement, Heval preconditioned his integration to work and participation in society
and relates these to the assumption that the priority is given to the Irish
people; an assumption that has been projected as a result of racist and
discrimination in access to work, an ideology that has been institutionalised
in Ireland (Fanning, 2002) in the name of nation-state and reproduce by public
against refugees and immigrant in every-day life.
In
contrast to Gilligan (2006), who emphasises on state effective intervention in
the process of integration, Gallagher (2010) argues that immigrants and refugees
can find way to integrate into society without state intervention. Gallagher concluded
by studying the Polish integration trajectory in Ireland whom they are Catholic
and then he generalise his finding to other communities in Ireland, while the
issue of divers religion in regard to the integration of other minority groups
has been undermined by Gallagher. The important of religion as an example from
the list that Boucher (2008) has already mentioned, has been reflected in a
number of expressions outlined by respondents. For Media and Kani both from
single category and Ahmad from UN, the most important differences between Ireland
and their native countries are religion and cultural variation. In question
about their understanding about integration; Emre a female respondent from
Single group explained that:
Emre: I think integration occurs when there is a way
open to interact with other people. Unfortunately, there is no such a way here
in Ireland. First, because foreign people sometime are not going to local bars
as it is not part of their culture, the second reason is that, people with different
religion background are not willing to go to the Church, a place that I think
is important for interact with other people in Ireland.
According to
Emre’s argument refugees and immigrants cultures and religions are part of
problem in integration process which is to some extent, resonate with that part
of sociologists who blame cultural and religious aspect of refugees and
immigrants for lack of integration of minority groups (see chapter 1). The
argument here is that states are responsible for integration of minority group
with different, religion, culture, background, language and customs. This can
be done first, through state intervention in the integration process of
refugees by emphasising on the core values of civilised and divers society
sensitive to culture, religion, age, class and gender (MacEinri, 2007). Second,
by insisting on racism as an important element that hindered the integration of
minority groups in Ireland and third, by contesting structural inequality
within the society which is related to the ideological and legal status of
liberal democratic traditional approach to the right and equality in the
society (Fanning, 2002).
Bahar a female Kurdish
refugee from UN category sates that:
Bahar:
I have Irish citizenship, legally I have all rights here in Ireland, for
example I suppose to have equal opportunity to work, education and so on, but
whenever I applied for Job I never called back for interview. I think I was
deliberately ignored by employers because of my ethnicity.
Bahar’s along
with other respondents’ quotes have underlined the problematic phase of
citizenship when it is seen merely from legal perspectives, though, there is
enormous amount of critics from literature on citizenship in Ireland when it
comes to legal consideration. For example the administrative, political and
constitution barrier are all legally hindered the integration process for many
of my respondents. Fanning (2002, p. 2) argues that ‘citizenship reflected
dominant ideologies of social membership on the base of race, ethnicity,
language and religion’. The above quote shows how Bahar’s ethnicity had affected
her employment. The quote echoes with
Fanning’s argument who states that the racism and discrimination in Ireland has
been expressed in the form of weak multiculturalism (Fanning 2002), a way that
Irish state deals with refugees and immigrants. Fanning further argues such an
approach to minority group which is emphasis on individual rights pay little
attention upon racism. An acquisition of citizenship status as a legal document
for many of participants, did not pave the way for their integration into Irish
society.
Refugees and immigrants want to be
part of society without preconditions, the way they dress, pray and practices
their culture. The rhetoric behind these quotes are that there is a strong
relationship between racism and integration as it has been reported in the
literature and confirmed by Gilligan (2006) who blame a certain groups such as
racist for dysfunction of integration of minorities in the society; the act of
racist which practiced whether by the state for example in the case of Turban
debate or prompted by the state in the form of 2004 Referendum on Citizenship
under the name of ‘common sens of citizenship’. This finding supports previous
research done by Wahlbeck (1999), (Enneli and Modood, 2005), (Coakley and Mc
Einri, 2007) into this brain area which links racism and integration in the
receiving society (see Chapter 1). While, acquisition of Irish citizenship as a
legal document facilitates life for majority of my respondents who have been
granted citizenship, it could be argued that they are feeling alienated from
Irish society. To some extent, this relates to two factors first, to Irish
equality legislation that has been characterised by narrow understanding of
racism as a factor in inequality and second, to the fact that citizenship, in
the Irish context, became equivalent with tolerance of minority culture but not
more than this (Fanning 2002). The ignorance aspect of equality legislations to
the racist whiten the Irish society can be understood when it defines racism in
terms of attack and hate speech (Fanning, 2002). In answer to the question
about whether they consider Ireland as a home country Jiar a female refugee from Single category replies:
Jiar: No, because, first, I have no Irish citizenship. Second, Even if I had
Irish citizenship it does not mean that I am an Irish person as long as I am
still considered by Irish people as a foreigner and black hair.
Similarly, Emre
a female Kurdish refugee from Single category replies that: ‘no, because I have
no relatives here even any friends. But I love Ireland’. In answering the same
question Ahmed from UN group said ‘I would like to regard myself as an Irish
citizen, but, you know, despite having Irish passport I am still a foreigner’.
In contrast to earlier proposition
that blamed victims (refugees and immigrants) for dysfunction of integration
process; these quotes along with data that I have obtained from my participants,
indicates that, despite existing of cognitive, legal and constitution barriers
within the Irish nation-state, there are also tendencies among Kurdish refugees
to integrate into Irish society; though the patent of integration between two
groups of Kurdish refugees in Ireland are varies due to numerous reasons that I
return to that later in this section. In the context of above-mentioned factors as a mechanism
for lack of an appropriate integration of many Kurdish refugees, despite
acquisition of Irish citizenship; there are also factors such as ‘ethnic
nepotism’ that tend to construct national identity based on exclusionary
ideology against non-national predicated upon the notion of citizen and
non-citizen; a discourse by Goldberg that has been developed by Lentin and McVeigh
2002 (cited in Fanning, 2009) in the Irish context. They claim that ‘Ireland as
a racial state in the process of becoming a racist state’. The illustrative
form of this statement has been reverberated in a number of quotes by my
respondents, for example in response to my question about factors that may
separate them from the rest of society; Karwan, a young Kurdish refugee from UN
group, who held Irish citizenship said ‘racial discrimination and hatreds
toward foreigner’, and Kani from Single category, simply answered ‘racist’.
There are numerous reasons to argue that the pattern
of integration process is different between two groups of Kurdish refugees in
Ireland. The most powerful and influential element is religion factor and
follow by that the level of education that each individual refugee have in
order to have clear vision about their environment. And the other influential
cause is the fact that UN group are more homogenous than the Single group and the
final reason is related to the proximity that all refugees from UN group have
had prior to come to Ireland and subsequently after they settled down in
Ireland. Explaining that in camper with the ‘Sings’, whom they are more
liberal, almost all participants from UN group correlated themselves with Islam,
a fact that distance them from liberal democratic values. Karwan from UN group, even though, have
obtained his Irish passport believes that:
Karwan: ‘In certain degree’ all of my rights including
civil, political and social rights have been preserved by Irish state, but you
Know, we are Muslim and they are Christian. Prior to come to Ireland I never
thought that people from other religion are not mixing with Muslim people. Most
of them correlate Muslim people with terrorists.
In Bahar opinion,
the main differences between Ireland and her native county is the way people
from each country follow in terms of religion. In answer to the question about
her relationship with neighbours and classmate she discloses that:
Bahar: I am a Muslim women, I cannot mix with men
that I don’t know them. Even when I am in college I am not interact with men in
my class.
SM
(Shamal Mirza): What class are you
taking part in?
Bahar:
English
Courses
This is to say
that many of respondents from Single group are reluctant to correlate
themselves with religion for example Media and Kurdo both from Single group,
have similar understanding about religion albeit, slightly different from each
other; that is quite different from that of UN group.
Media: Religion is not important for me
at all as far as it remain in private domain of individual, not harm people and
do not interferes in politic as it is the case in Iran.
Kurdo:
I am not religious person at all. I respect all religion and beliefs. I see all
religion in the same way. There is similarity between all Abrahami religions.
They are all advocating morality. Religions have positive and negative
aspect….at the moment I see political religion in any form as negative to the
human society.
The second factor
that differentiates two groups of Kurdish refugees in their integration process
is related to the level of education that each individual within each group possess.
the evidence from this study suggest that most of respondents from UN group are
cam from poor and disadvantage background with little chance to access to
education a fact that had profound effect on their understanding about their
environment and finally on their integration process in the western society.
From four cases of UN categories none of them received higher qualification,
while many of individual from Single group entered university prior to cm to
Ireland.
The third possible explanation for
this result can be related to homogeneity of the UN group in terms of dialect,
political orientation and their previous proximity as they have lived in
confined geographical area. The entire mentioned factors led the UN Kurdish
refugee in Ireland to live in each other proximity across Ireland and more self-centred
interaction manner with people from the same group. It is interesting to note
that in all four cases of UN group in this study; I noticed that they chose to
be friend with Kurdish people, preferably from the UN group as they have more
in common with each other. Surprisingly, almost all participants from the
single category stated that there are no differences between people with
different, cultural, religion and ethnic background in the process of choosing
friends. For example Heval
said that:
Heval:
I do not have preference of any person over another just because he/she is from
different race; I can be friend with any one as long as he/she has good
characters, and friendly, wise and good personality.
According to the
above mentioned facts in regard to the variation between the two groups of
Kurdish refugees in Ireland, it is more likely that the Single Kurdish Refugees
are more open to integrate into the Irish society than the UN group. The result
of this study did not show that citizenship status in legal manner which is
comprises of civil, political and economic rights, alone can solve the problems
that the Kurdish refugees and immigrants faced in every-day life in Ireland. It
rather argues that the issues of racist needs to be taking into account in
discourse about integration of Kurdish refugees and immigrants; by what Fanning
call it a ‘cosmopolitan citizenship approaches’ to refugees and immigration.
Otherwise, the problem of isolation of minority groups will remain intact as a
problem for the future conflict.
In
comparison between the two groups of Kurdish refugees in Ireland I notice that,
despite the difficulties that both groups have in their integration processes, the
path that each group takes on in their integration process is different from
the other. The common problem that both groups face are ranging from lack of
access to work due to racist issue that have institutional within Irish society
to the language and educational barrier that all hinder their integration
process. At the same time, there are a number of important differences between
UN and Single in the way they approach and deal with the problems they face in
the new society; an approach that differentiates the Single group from the UN one
from another perspectives which is different from above motioned variation.
To sum up this section, first,
identified that it is not
customary within that Kurdish tradition to have a patriarchal social structure
a fact that may produces different pattern of integration, for this reason I
discussed both gender’s pattern of integration within the citizenship,
employment and identity together and not separate from each other.
Then it argued that civil, political and social rights that have been
stipulated in citizenship concept is part of integration process and
comprehensive integration more likely possible when the legal status such as
citizenship accompanied with moral obligation toward immigrants and refugees by
effort to eliminate discrimination and racist in the society. It further argued
that while citizenship helps refugees and immigrates in their integration
process it does not reassuring integration without inadequate attention to culture,
language, morality, family and even refugees backgrounds within the process of
integration. The finding of this research also suggests that the pattern of
integration between UN and Single groups of Kurdish refugees in Ireland are
varied due to numerous reason such as for example their level of education and
homogeneity of UN and heterogeneity of Single group and outlines that the Kurds
in UN group are less integrated because of lack of education, stricter
religious practices that is in conflict with democratic values, and that all UN
group are concentrated in certain areas like Sligo a fact that distance them
from the rest of society.
Employment
a factor for integration
By taking two
groups of Kurdish refugees in Ireland in the last section I concluded that
Kurdish refugees who came to Ireland through the UN Refugee Programme are less
likely to integrate into Irish society, than their counterpart in Single
category. Surprisingly, the above finding is corresponding with the
relationship between integration and employment and unemployment with lack of
integration of Kurdish refugees in Ireland. This is to say that as much as the
integration process among Kurdish refugees proceeded successfully due to any
reason, they were most likely to hold a position within workforce. Thus, integration of Kurdish
refugees had been affected by the degree in which each individual participate
in work and occupation and vice versa. As I stated earlier in chapter 1, the
aim of this study is not economic consideration but socials integration, the
logical reason for discussing employment in this section is that firs, I used
employment as a medium to integration and the focuses will be on employment as
a factor that involves in the process of integration and second reason is that
employment plies significant role in economic mobility of refugees and
immigrant that subsequently eases integration process (see chapter 2). The
topic in this section steamed from frequently of responses by UN group to the
question about their employment. The answer by Ahmed, Karwan, Bahar and Hanoa
all from UN group was ‘no’. This result put me through consideration of
employment as a factor to integration. Ahmed added more to his ‘no’ answer and
stats:
Ahmed: firs of all, I have
to say our position as a refugee in the society is located somewhere lower than
working class who are straggling for ever-day life. Therefore, it is difficult
to find job. The second reason is that there is a strong nepotism relationship
between people in Ireland so they call their relatives for Job or they prefer
people from Western European countries as they think they have more in common
with them rather than with someone from Middle-Eastern countries.
This study found
that all participates from the UN group are unemployed and only a small segment
from the Single category are working with NGO, s or held lower position within
the workforce. This section attempts to highlights the role of employment in
the integration process of Kurdish refugees and vice versa and bring about a
logic explanation for above finding in the light of state policies in the this
arena. Let’s start with Bahar, s quote, a female refugee from UN group who
relates her unemployment to the factors such as language and lack of skills and
finally to her integration, as she says:
Barhar: when I came to
Ireland I was not able to speak English. It was very difficult for me to learn
another language especially when you have no background of any education. So I
tried to learn English but still I have no skills to work. I had no chance to
work with any government and non-government organisations so far. Therefore, I
have to ask how I can integrate while I am not able to go out and meet people.
In the other
side, the inverse of above statement is true, that those Kurdish refugees, who
integrated in some way managed to participate more in workforce and with
mainstream population. Karwan a male refugee from UN group, unlike Bahar who
conditioned her integration to work, links integration to employment in a
statement when I asked him about his understanding about integration, as he
states:
Karwan:
there is no way to integrate due to several reasons such as cultural and
religion differences and sometime racial discrimination; for the most part they
are factor and reason for lack of employment; otherwise there is work for
everyone.
The link between
integration and work made known in expression of almost all participants in
this study. The above finding is consistent with previous studies into the
integration of minority groups in new society such as Enneli and Modood (2005),
and study of social integration of minority group conducted by Parekh (1995), who
revealed that there are close relationships between employment and integration
on one hand, and unemployment and lack of integration of minority groups on the
other; economic mobility of refugees and immigrants considered by Parekh (1995)
as important factor in integration process (see chapter 1). Many of my respondents
have linked their legal status, as an important element for integration, with
their employment, for example, Heval from Sing group who have Irish citizenship
says that:
Heval:
The differences between refugees with different legal status is that the
refugees who held Irish citizenship can
borrow credits from the bank to setup a business while refugees with not such legal
status may not be able to attract banks interests to do so.
The reason
behind unemployment of refugees varied from lack of appropriate qualification,
education and skills to the issues of discrimination and racist; a combination
of different factors that had profound result on employment of Kurdish refugees
in Ireland. At this instant while the connection between employment and
integration was detailed. It revealed that lack of employment of refugees is
due to language barrier, discrimination, lack of access to education; a set of
subjects that request serious consideration by the policy maker in regard to
refugees and immigrant.
To begin with, the immigrants and
particularly refugees who involuntary, have left their country of origin, faced
economic difficulties in the new society, and due to that situation they stand
automatically in lower position within class division in the society. The need
for economic mobility and participation of minority groups in economic
activities have been highlighted, widely, by Parekh (1995), Enneli and Modood
(2005) and Coaklt and Mac Einri (2007) as important issue in the integration of
minority groups in the receiving society.
From the current study of Kurdish refugees it is found that the relationship
between employment and integration and vice versa is a dialectic relationship.
Most notably, this came as a result of frequently of same answers to the
question about the factor that they think links them to the Irish society. For
example Hanao a female from UN group, who is a student, answers ‘work’, because
if I could find work I could find friend’, and Heval a male from single group
says that he can be part of society if he works and contributes to the society.
And on the other hand, for those who had no Irish citizenship the expressions
were different but in some ways the result was that without prepare citizenship
it is not possible to find prepare work. Ekrem from Single group, with no legal
citizenship status, outlines how citizenship in legal form can help him to
settle down mentally and facilitate life in Ireland. He states that ‘if I had citizenship status the life could
be easy for me because I could feel that I belong to somewhere and I could
mentally settle down and work’.
The values of work and employment are acknowledged
by almost all participants in this study; whereas,
the data that I have obtained from participants in this study shows that, the majority
of respondents from Single and almost all UN categories are unemployed and
those who are working, have held lower position in the workforce, such as food
and service industry. This is to say that all participates were young and in
the age that make them fit for economic activities and work. The location of
young Kurdish refugees in the lower position within the workforce are not only
related to their legal status, but in some extend, to lower level of education
that the young Kurdish refugees have in order to occupy professional positions,
a fact that Enneli and Modood (2005) mentioned for deprivation of young Kurd
and Turk from appropriate job in the UK. As a result of triangulation of the
available data with literature review and conceptual and theoretical framework
in this study, it is more likely to correlate unemployment of Kurdish refugees
with racist policies as it revealed in the expression of number of respondents
in this study. Fanning (2002) links the exclusionary policy to perceptions that
denying rights to non-citizens or denying citizenship to non-national (see
literature review); a policy that inconsistence with the Employment Equality
Act 1998 that prohibited discrimination in employment on the bases of race,
religion, nationality, gender, family status, age, disability. The
above findings about Kurdish refugees in Ireland are consistent with Wahlbeck
(1999) who considers unemployment along with social isolation and
discrimination as an important factor to the integration of Kurdish refugees. For
Enneli and Modood (2005) who studied the young Kurds and Turks in the UK, change
in economic relation and the labour market are seen as disruptive pattern of
ethnic relation. The finding of this study also corroborates the idea of Enneli
and Modood (2005), who referred the disruption and barrier to integration of
minority groups to the lack of economic success, lower level of education,
living in poverty, lack of access to housing, lower level of social protection
and etc. the next section looks at the identity of refugee in the process of
integration.
Aspect of identity
and belonging are important concepts in analysing refugees and immigrant’s
attitudes toward their environment and perceptions about themselves. These
attitudes and perceptions are impetus for refugees and immigrants to make sense
about their country of origin and the host country. The experiences of refugees
and immigrants in exile have been theorised by many sociologists under the terms
of refugee and diaspora theory (Kanz, 1981, Zolbeg, Sulbeg and Aguayo, 1989,
Stein, 1981a, Vasquez, 1989, Brah, 1996 and Safran, 1991). In this section
attempts have been made to understand how Kurdish refugees in Ireland fit into
the above terms and how their integration process has been influenced by their
perception about their identities.
While the last two sections linked Kurdish
integration process to several factors such as discrimination, racism, lack of
access to work, education and finally to the state policies, The focus of this
section is to the nature and attitudes of Kurdish refugees inherited from the
past and manifested in exile due to their circumstances within refugee and
diaspora theory. An argument that tend to shift attention from what we have
discussed earlier about integration of Kurdish refugee to the fact that the
process of Kurdish integration in Ireland influenced by their attachment to
their home country. This attachment can be interpreted with a sense of
belonging or lack of it when it is discussed within refugee and diaspora
theory. From this argument one may assumes that the culture of minority groups
are far more open to change and accept democratic values (see chapter 1). But
the argument is that the attitude of refugees for example in the case of their
fidelity toward their country of origin is socially constructed phenomenon and
in the case of ‘home country’ it should be interpreted with what Anderson (1991)
call it ‘imagined community’. All
my respondents are Kurds from four different countries that is to say Iran,
Iraq, Turkey and Syria, though, they are all consider themselves as Kurd from
Kurdistan and avoid to correlate themselves with the mentioned countries. This
can be understood in the context of identity formation which is widely debated
and held to be problematic in the social science (Wahlbeck, 1999)’. For example
Kajal a female refugee from Single group, in response to question about her
identity states that:
Kajal:
This is a tough question. Prior to come to Ireland I never thought of my
identity in terms of race and nationality deep as I am thinking here in Ireland.
Now whenever I am confronted with such a question I reply that I am a Kurd from
Kurdistan.
And Emre a
Kurdish female refugee from Turkey in response to the same question states that
‘I am a Kurd from Kurdistan. I never said that I am from Turkey because Turks
are invading my country’. Emre’s statement is politicised by linking her
identity with Turkish invasion of Kurdistan; a connection that accompanied with
affection and fidelity toward her country of origin (in this case Kurdistan)
and its political movement. Emre’s attitude is a reflection of the current
political movement in Kurdistan. And an affiliation that shows her political
orientation in the form of identity. In another expression by Hanao, a female Kurdish
refugee from UN group, the temptation
for identity formation along with her connection with the home country is more evidence
as she states:
Hanao:
Despite the fact that I never been in Kurdistan in my life but I can feel it
how Kurdistan look like, some time I dream of it. I consider myself as a Kurd from
Kurdistan.
They are political refugees who left their country
of origin forcibly and settled down in Ireland. The connection between refugees
as a concept and forcibly displaced people can be best understood within the
definition of refugee by NCCRI (see chapter 2). It linked this definition to a
person who left their country of origin due to political, religion, ‘race’,
nationality and being a member of particular social group (see chapter 2). As
the exodus of the Kurds from Kurdistan
were not voluntary rather it is based on force due to political, religion or
ethnic backgrounds, there is a strong relationship between the Kurdish refugees
in Ireland and those of relatives and friends at home country, and with the political
movement at home. A fact that has been outlined by almost all my respondent who
claim they are political refugees. Wahlbeck (1999) identified the same pattern
of trend among the Kurdish refugees in the UK and Finland and argues that Kurds
in the UK and Finland with a few exceptions all identified themselves with
political groups in the home country (see chapter 2). As almost all may respondents are first
generation, they have same interpretation about the event in the past through
the notion of ‘collection memory’. The strong association between Kurdish
refugees with the home country has been documented in the form of their
participation in Kurdish national events such as (Newroz), their participation
in Kurdish community organisation and for those who have Irish passport, their
regular visit to their country of origin. Ahmed a Kurdish refugee from the UN
category states that ‘I would like to go home, but I am not allowed to do so as
I am a political refugee in Ireland’. The above mentioned factors which are
also highlighted by Wahlbeck (1999) in the study of Kurdish refugees in UK and Finland
are conditions that have been outlined by Kunz (1981) for Majority Identify Refugees
and Event-related Refugee whose opposition to political and social events at
home is shared by their compatriot and left their country of origin due to
racial, religion and ethnic discrimination. A sense that Kurds identified themselves
enthusiastically with the events and activities that are symbol for Kurdish national
in fact show Kurdish identity in exile with the nation and terms associated
with it. Looking
at the Kurdish refugees through the lens of refugee theory particularly with
that of Kunz typology of refugee, may offer different explanation from what we
have seen earlier in the citizenship and employment section about the
integration of Kurdish refugees. Placing Kurdish refugees inside the gamut of
refugee theory means that Kurdish refugees have strong attachment to the home
country a fact that could be an important factor in their integration process and
their life experiences such as for example friendship and neighbourhood in
Ireland. This attachment encompasses of physical and mental attachment to the
home country. For example my entire respondents are keen to travel to their
country of origin when I ask them about the frequency of their journey to their
home country. Kani a female refugee from Single group states: ‘I would like to
go home but I am a political refugee, I am not allowed to go back to Iran’; and
there are regular visits took place by those Kurdish refugees who have Irish
citizenship. Emre a female refugee from Single category visits Turkey in
regular bases. This is resonating with what Kunz argues that:
It is a
reluctance to uproot oneself, and the absence of positive original motivations
to settle elsewhere, which characterises all refugee decisions and distinguishes
the refugee from the voluntary migrants.
(Kunz, 1973, p. 130)
The attachment
of Kurdish refugees to the home country is more understandable in the context
of diaspora theory. The term diaspora is another important tool that can be
used in examining the attitudes and experience of refugees and immigrants in
exile. The associated words with diasporas are exile, banishment, homeland,
collective identity and forcible dispersal; a set of vocabulary that in one way
or another associate with Kurdish refugees in exile. The most distinguished
conditions for diaspora outlined by Safran typology for diaspora theory (see chapter
2); conditions that are more obvious with the Kurdish refugees in Ireland. That
the Kurds in Ireland are political refugees who fled their country of origin
due to political, religious and discrimination have been replicated in almost
all comments by my respondents. Jiar a female Kurdish refugee from Single
group, in answering to the question of how often do you travel to your country replies
‘I am not allowed to go back home I am a political refugee’. This statement
illustrates that first, Jiar is a political refugee in Ireland and second the
home is her country of origin. Bahar a Female refugee from UN category made it
more clear by stating that:
Bahar: I am a political refugee escaped from Iran
because I am a Kurd. I do not consider Ireland as a home country. I try to feel
that Ireland is my country but in reality it is difficult. I will be going back
to my country-Kurdistan- one day, I am not gone to live here for ever. As soon
as my country turned to democracy I will be in Kurdistan.
Ahmed a male
refugee from UN group is in a situation of ambivalent in answering the same
question as he states:
Ahmed: No and yes, no, because
I am not from Ireland and if an Irish person ask me about my country I would
reply that I am not Irish rather I say I am a Kurd from Kurdistan. No, because
at the moment I have no home apart from Ireland.
The overall
above comments are story of trauma, involuntary displacement and a collective
memory from the past with desire to going back to their country of origin; an
attachment and dream about homeland that could be seen as a significant fender
between refugees who fall into diaspora theory with the mainstream society. The
attachment of refugees with home country, its people and events is part of
social structure of refugees as Wahlbeck (1999) used concept of diaspora to
understand social structure of Kurdish refugee and their relationship with both
country of origin and with the host country and the effect of this relationship
with their integration process.
To summarise, this chapter have
focused on citizenship, employment and identity as a means to understand social
integration and life experiences of Kurdish refugees in Ireland and argued that
components parts of citizenship such as civil, political and social rights of
refugees and immigrations can be understood as part of integration process. It
further emphasises on ‘cosmopolitan approach’ to refugee and immigrants with consideration
of discrimination and racism in discourse concerning integration of Kurdish
refugees. In employment section the argument is that the employment of refugees
and integration process are interlinked the way that economic mobility of
refugees considered as an important factor in the process of almost all Kurdish
refugees in Ireland. The degree in which Kurds in Ireland integrated depends on
the degree in which they participated in workforce and vice versa. The concept
of identity used in this research in
order to understand Kurdish orientation toward their country of origin and the
host country, an attitude that have profound effect of their integration
process. In this section I argued that while Kurds in Ireland fall into
diaspora and refugee theory it is difficult to uproot them from their culture,
norms and values that is valuable to them; a fact that in some way prevent them
to integrate fully into mainstream society.
Chapter
5: Conclusions
This dissertation started
with the aim to explore social integration of young Kurdish refugees in Ireland
in light of state social policies with regard to refugees and immigrants in
Ireland. Though, economic and political integration in not objective to this study,
it facilitate better understanding of social integration which is discussed
throughout this dissertation in surface and inseparable with social integration
subject. The introduction advanced with literature review relevant to topic in
question most notably literatures related to integration of Kurdish refugee,
policy and states’ approach to refugees and immigrants and applicable
literature with regard to integration of minority groups in Ireland. For the
most part, from the literature reviews first, it was understood that
integration of minority groups predicated upon the issue of citizenship in
terms of rights and duties that both immigrates and state are responsible for
integration; second, it was also revealed that stats policies have failed to integrate
refugees and immigrants into Irish society. In light of this discussion the
main research question (see chapter 1) have been designed to explore social
integration of young Kurdish refugees in Ireland. Chapter 2 discussed conceptual
and theoretical framework. The chosen theories for this study were refugee,
diaspora and integration theory. The pertinent theories made it possible to get
better insight into the integration of Kurdish refugees with regard to their
attitude, behaviour and particularly their orientations toward their country of
origin and the host country. The above mentioned theories also helped to look
for specific data to answer the main question and to discuss finding. Chapter 3
focused on the research methodology. It is identified that the overall research
strategy is a multiple,
exploratory case study, using thematic analysis method in order to analysis
social integration of Kurdish refugees in Ireland.
Summary
of major findings
Chapter four evaluated integration process of
Kurdish refugees within the framework of identified themes as of ‘citizenship’, ‘employment’ and ‘identity’. In the first section it was proposed that
component parts of citizenship such as civil, political and social rights of
refugees and immigrants are part of integration process and argues that while
refugees and immigrants are may avail of citizenship in the form of civil, political and social rights they are
still feel alienated from the rest of society due to discrimination and racism
related issues, than I argued that the existing discrimination and racist in
society linked to narrow interpretation of integration in the context of
immigration policy. I maintained that while the legal vocabulary such as civil,
political and social rights of refugees and immigrants can facilitate
integration process, these needs to be accompanied with moral obligations
approach with consideration of racist and discrimination in discourse
concerning integration of Kurdish refugees in Ireland. In second
section I projected that the employment and integration as a process are
interlinked in the way that employment is a driving force for integration and
vice versa. The topic in this section derived from the data that I obtained
from interviews with participants. Data shows that all respondents from UN
category were unemployed and I concluded that this is due to lack or weak
integration when it compared with Single group who are working though in lower
position within workforce. From available data, however, I concluded that while
unemployment of Kurdish refugees particularly the Kurds from UN group are
multifaceted such as lower level of education and lack of appropriate skills,
there are factor that determines integration process such as close relationship
between unemployment and discrimination in access to workforce. Whereas in
section 1 and 2, I related integration of refugees and immigrants to the
quality of citizenship and their access to work by linking it to the issues of
discrimination and racist within policy orientation; section 3 evaluate
integration from different perspective. In this section I argued that in order
to comprehend explanations for lack of integration of Kurdish refugees the
focus should not be restricted only to the issues of discrimination and poor
integration policy rather, in some extern, identity formation of Kurdish
refugees ply its role in the process as far as Kurdish refugees are political
refugee who are flee from their country of origin due to racial, ethnic and
religious discrimination and fall into diaspora and refugee theory. Kurdish refugees
who are fall into diaspora and refugee theory have great tendency toward their
cultures, norms and values that valuable for people in their country of origin.
At the same time, I argued that culture and associated tem are socially
constructed phenomenon which is not fixed and primordial and I brought about
the idea of Anderson (1991) who talks about ‘imagined community’.
Limitation
of the study
There were some limitations with respect to
literature review and research methodology. One of the main obstacles to this
research was shortage of literature in regard to the Kurdish refugee integration
both among scholars in Ireland and other countries. In order to filling this vacuum,
I used literature related to the integration of other minority group who I deemed
to be similar, yet not completely with the Kurdish refugees in Ireland. This
was another reason for using exploratory rather than explanatory research
design in this study. In part to methodological limitations, problem arises
with interpretation of finding. During conducting research finding I realised
that data gathered from interviews are not enough in order to conduct a
thorough analysis of results. For example, instead of asking participants about
their general views with regard to citizenship (see Appendix 2 question 3), I
could asked direct and specific question about their understanding about
citizenship in Ireland that could help address aspect of citizenship presented
in finding chapter, more precisely. Throughout data collection the major
problem that I confronted was the issue of access to accuracy of what some of
my respondents offer during interview. This is due to several reasons, first, I
had to interview both gender in order to generalise the finding to more Kurdish
people in Ireland, therefore ethical consideration found an issue that had to
be taking into account with regard to interview female respondents. While in
the case of Single group the problem was minor in scale, in order to conduct
interview with female refugees from UN group I had to arrange interview with
her relative, a fact that had its effect on the accuracy of what respondent
offers during interview. In such situation, they may not disclose everything
that they probably do while they are not accompanying with other people. The
other limitation to this study was the issues related to the language and
terminologies used frequently during the research in this study. In the course
of interview I had to interpret terms such as for example multiculturalism,
integration and so on, to the language that understandable to some of my respondents
who are unfamiliar with such terms. Apart from this, during conducting research
finding I had to translate data from Kurdish to English language, as some of
the interviews took place in native Kurdish language.
Directions for future research.
The result of this research directed toward
particulate division of future research and policy in the area of refugees and
immigrants integration. First, the finding of this study suggests that while
civil, political and social rights of refugees and immigrant, as a component
parts of citizenship, can facilitate integration process of Kurdish refugees in
Ireland, it is found that the failed policies in regard to refugees in general
and in this study Kurdish refugees in particular related to narrow
understanding of integration that sees refugees and immigrants as a ‘problem’(Lentin
and McVeigh, 2002) or merely from the lens of economy (Fanning, 2002), This in
fact omitted other aspect of refugees and immigrants with different language,
religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. This approach to refugees and
immigrants that ignores this variation within the society can be interpreted in
the context of racist and discrimination in the way that policy serves the
ideology of nation-state which only values culture and religion of the
nation-state. According to what was said, it can be argued that if social
cohesion is the main objective of integration, policies need to focus on
elimination of racist and discrimination along with promotion of citizenship as
a legal procedure that can be considered as important factor in integration
process of Kurdish refugees in Ireland. This is probably most consistent with Fanning
proposal of ‘cosmopolitan approaches’ to integration of minority groups in
Ireland (Fanning, 2002).
The results of this study also confirms that there
are close relationship between integration and employment and vice versa among
Kurdish refugees in their integration process in Ireland and concluded that Single
group in compare with the UN one, are more integrated in Irish society due to
their position within labour market and also I related the integration of
Single group, even in limited degree, to their level of education or skills
they possess prior to come to Ireland. Therefore, it is suggested that the
economic mobility of Kurdish refugees can in part facilitate integration of
Kurdish refugees in Ireland. Economic mobility considered by many scholars as
an important factor in integration of minority group in host countries, thus,
consideration of this important issue within integration policy and discourse
seems to be necessary.
There is shortage of literature in the field of
integration of minority groups in Ireland what has been done so far are general
study of integration process in Ireland that sees refugees and immigrants as a
unit entity and not-separable with each other. This study argues that each
group of refugees and immigrants have their own cultural trends that are
differentiate them from each other and requires particular attention by future
researcher in the field of social integration of minorities groups.
Appendix 1: Overview of participants in
the study
|
Name (pseudonyms)
|
Gender
|
Date of Interview
|
Categories
|
|
Ekrem
|
Male
|
10 August
2011
|
Single/Turkey
|
|
Emre
|
Female
|
11 August
2011
|
Single/Turkey
|
|
Heval
|
Male
|
6 August
2011
|
Single/Syria
|
|
Jiar
|
Female
|
9 August
2011
|
Single/Syria
|
|
Kurdo
|
Male
|
4 August
2011
|
Single/Iraq
|
|
Kajal
|
Female
|
8 August
2011
|
Single/Iraq
|
|
Kani
|
Female
|
19 August
2011
|
Single/Iran
|
|
Media
|
Males
|
6 August
2011
|
Single/Iran
|
|
Bahar
|
Female
|
10 August 2011
|
UN/Iran
|
|
Hanao
|
Female
|
12 August
2011
|
UN/Iran
|
|
Ahmed
|
Male
|
8 August
2011
|
UN/Iran
|
|
Karwan
|
Male
|
7 August
2011
|
UN/Iran
|
Appendix 2: Interview
guide
1.
In which way you
think Ireland is different from your native country?
2.
What are
differences between Irish and Kurdish cultures?
3.
How do you
explain citizenship? Why?
4.
How do you
describe yourself in terms of identity?
5.
How is your
relationship with neighbours /classmates?
6.
With whom you
prefer to be friend more? Why?
7.
How often do you
travel to your country?
8.
Do you consider
Ireland as a home country?
9.
How do you think
you can be part of society in Ireland?
10.
How do you
explain integration?
11.
Do you follow on
your parents or fellow citizen in cultural practices?
12.
How important is
the other culture for you?
13.
How important is
the other religion for you?
14.
Do you
participate in any event apart from your culture events?
15.
Have you ever
worked in any governmental or voluntary agency?
In yes/no why?
16.
What
factors/factor do you think have linked you to the Irish society?
17.
What factors do
you think separated you from the rest of society?
18.
Is there
anything you would like to add to your answers?
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