New European Identity and Citizenship

Remy Leveau, Khajida Mohsen-Finan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351766258
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This title was first published in 2002. This study, undertaken with the support of the Ford Foundation under the scientific leadership of Khadija Mohsen-Finan, Remy Leveau and Catherine Wihtol de Wenden considers the new forms of citizenship and identity that have emerged within the settlements of immigrant populations in various countries in Europe. Through their claims to citizenship, shifting religious identities and by occupying the high ground both locally and at European level, these communities challenge long standing citizenship models and give full meaning to the concepts of supranational European citizenship. The contributors question whether such European citizenship will include all residents of Europe or whether it will serve to increase the exclusion felt by certain groups of migrants. In particular the contributors examine the implications of three emerging citizenship trends - the impact of the demand for Islam; the emergence of undocumented migrants and their inclusion in an increasingly stratified society; and finally, the rising tide of ordinary or political refugees who are challenging European citizenship on their own terms.

Chapter 1

Research on Immigration, Islam and Citizenship in Western Europe: How Far Has a Specific Transdisciplinary Domain Been Established?

Vassoodeven Vuddamalay

Introduction

Research concerning immigration, Islam and citizenship issues has today attained a critical point. The situation has become excessively complex for organizations, social milieux and especially political elites questioned by such issues. Transnational scientific communities and funding-bureaucracies are called to understand the process of knowledge-accumulation in such fields, constantly interacting with international and national events. Research-chronologies show an almost similar pattern for almost all the major European countries, in the transition from the late 1970s’ essentially socio-economic approach of migration to the 1990s’ dominantly political and socio-religious approach. However, the new immigrant countries of Southern Europe are simultaneously having to deal with economic migrants, refugees and the emerging issue of Islam. The transformations of the European and national debates from purely economicist immigrant labour paradigms of the late 1970s and early 1980s, show how the specialised domains and their experts have come to acquire an overall dramatic¹ dimension. Specific transdisciplinary domains on a European level are quickly emerging as immigration, Islam and citizenship research is being developed. Research teams have now become closely knit communities, not only on a national, European and/or Euro-American scale, but they are also increasingly linking with major non-Western states specialised with research-centres.

Within the fast increasing migration and Islam research and despite a growing europeanization of the debates, the national context has remained the dominant research framework. The institutional advancement towards a common political and economic space is to some extent blocked by strong national intellectual traits. The dominant national framework has resulted in distinct ways of accumulating knowledge in dominant national concepts, whereby the social scientists approach migration/Islam and the evolving issues. In fact, these national traits may to some extent hinder the identification of an essential missing link in migration and Islam debates, namely the impact of distinct European Orientalism(s). Orientalism as a specific scientific field has been left behind and more often forgotten by the intellectual and political elites until some events come to remind them of its usefulness. Hence, an understanding of the historical and socio-political background on the ways research has developed in the fields evoked above is now essential.

Research within these domains related to migration has become so stratified that, at times, it is remarked that the specialists themselves can sometimes forget the ever-necessary recontextualization of their specific researches within the more global European social sciences. Another important aspect is the re-introduction into the debates on a world-level of all the social sciences, and not only sociology or politics. Anthropology, geography and history which have helped more than other disciplines in reestablishing links with the wider domain of Orientalism, should be questioned in their interactions with migration, Islam and citizenship. However, in France the political sciences have built some early links with segments of the Orientalist institutions, resulting in the learning of Arab and other Oriental languages by the political scientists and also working-arrangements with the religious sciences, during the speeding up of the Islam debates as from the early 1980s. For instance, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its research-institutes in the Muslim world² is close to the university-milieux specialised in the diverse countries which are today being investigated by the young French doctoral students. And, the post of the ‘cadre d’Orient,’ of the Ministry has traditionally attracted young politologists and students from the INALCO. Some observers will even remark that for several generations, some of these qualifications and socio-professional trajectories (often as diplomats) have been essentially coopted within the French/European aristocratic social milieux.

Furthermore, the impact on citizenship-research has resulted in a continuing reappraisal of the notion of citizenship, whereby the post-1945 American hegemony and the consequent americanization of European social theories have been postulated. We conclude with the debates concerning the role of the US as a looking-glass for European research in migration/Islam and citizenship issues. What are the new perspectives? What can be the future of the inter-European and Euro-American social scientific partnerships? Is the American dominance in these research-domains really challenged by the rich diversity of the European approaches? Concerning the specific dimensions of the American dominance on European Sociology,³ some specialists in the post-1989 events, have been introducing the debates concerning these specific Euro-American relations in the domain of social scientific researches. In 1998, the British scholar, Adrian Favell has also been pursuing a long-term work on the consequences of American researches on Europe in the specific areas of immigration, integration and citizenship issues.

Migration and Islam research in post-1945 Europe: How to recontextualize these new research-fields?

European social sciences have been heavily marked by the two world wars. The First World War has been witnessing the end of the institutionalization-process of most Western European sociologies, often in close interactions with American sociology. During the interwar years, this process was materialised by the settingup of social scientific research-centres and the rise of specific schools of thought. However, this movement has been interrupted by the imminence of the Second World War. Research-institutions established in most of the European states have been transformed from their initial objectives through the exile of their distinguished researchers. The Frankfurt School⁴ (1923-1950) has been one of the most illustrious examples of that period. Robert Park inversely seen as one of the founders of the Chicago Urban Sociology and of the mode of ethnic monographs relied also on European thinkers. Post-1945 social sciences have been generalised throughout Europe and specific schools of thought and sub-disciplines⁵ have gone through a massive development in accordance with particular national political and scientific systems. Migration and Islam research is still institutionally an underdeveloped sector within most social sciences and attempts are made to understand its institutional weaknesses despite a massive growth of field-research, which is quite generously funded by national, supranational specialised organizations and by private foundations. A chronology of global migration and Islam research will contribute to this tentative understanding.

Migration and Islam research in Europe has emerged as specific research-domains only during the past 15 to 20 years. These domains are today marked by a fast-increasing rate of publication. The language-factor and the diverse scientific cultures add to the already existent difficulties to synthetize and classify these publications. Despite increasing programs built within an inter-European, Euro-American or even Euro-Australian scales, research-teams and individual researchers have largely carried out their work within a national framework approach. Even then, this national boundedness of migration and Islam-research should be recontextualized within the post-1945 changes brought about in European social sciences.⁶ How have these issues of migration, the institutionalization of Islam in European countries and the changing definitions of integration/citizenship been influencing the diverse disciplines within the University?

Recording and classifying fast-increasing researches in these highly politicised domains as migration and Islam on a European scale is today a major challenge. Is it academically pertinent to record and discuss all the works that are continually being published on these issues? Or rather should not a regular assessment or state-of-the-art be seen as a pre-requisite work in these fast-advancing research-fields? The political elites and the national and supranational bureaucracies who usually fund these research-activities have much to gain through such interactions with the scientific communities. What methodologies can then be set up in order to be able to account synthetically for the growing diversity of actors who intervene on societal/ political issues? Researchers are increasingly being solicited by the medias and the political classes and their main activities are hence being carried out within the States or the European Commissions’ policy-oriented needs.

How will it be possible to identify the main schools of thought, research-teams or even individual researchers and discuss their work? Researchers and teams who have been working on almost the same problematiques during the past two decades or so and have been publishing in specialised journals are discussed here. However, these more recent works of the past 20 to 30 years should be reexamined within a more long-term framework. This may allow us to understand how far this ever-specialised domain of migration, Islam and citizenship research is increasingly influencing social theory. Some of the younger and more Europeanist sociologists, are today exploring these new avenues of research and are trying to add more impetus to their work in a comparatist European approach within a Euro-American context.⁷ To some extent, migration-research should be recontextualised within a long-term understanding of the scientific and political background of the development of the social sciences both on Euro-American and inter-European levels.

Chronological development of migration and Islam research as from the mid-1970s: The identification of four sub-periods

Migration and Islam-research is tentatively divided into four sub-periods, a chronology which has been more or less observed in most European countries. France is taken as one of the meaningful sites of approach as we have been working on this specific political and scientific context for the past 15 years. The French case is necessarily compared to other European scientific contexts. These sub-periods are listed below and discussions are held within the larger frameworks of post-1945 European social sciences.

The first period (1970/74 to 1981/82), shows us the first collective works done by French social scientists mainly in Paris. The Centre d’études sociologiques of rue Cardinet,⁸ transferred during the 1980s to the IRESCO of rue Pouchet was the meeting-point of these pioneering French researchers.

The second sub-period (1981-1989), is marked by two major events during the same decade within the European landscape. The political protest Marches of the Beurs⁹ in the early eighties were succeeded by the emergence of Islam in the public French/British spheres with the Creil Headscarf and Rushdie Affairs. The research-teams began then to specialise themselves, giving rise to local research-centres in the main provincial university cities, which tend to oppose themselves to the ‘tout Paris’ mentality.¹⁰

The third period (1989-1996), results in the generalization of doctoral researches on a European scale and the emergence of a second and/or third generation of researchers who will increasingly meet their European and American university colleagues.

And the last period (1996-2000), has seen the publication of these doctoral dissertations and also of growing cross-national colloquys.

However, within post-1945 European social sciences, migration and Islam research has been progressing quite unevenly. Despite the quite early problems caused by large-scale immigration of Muslim foreign workers, migration and Islam-research and their impact on the citizenship issue have only been able to emerge as a fin-de-siècle feature within European social sciences. Scholars in the different states have been making their own national assessments as from the late 1980s and during the 1990s. Some specialised journals have been developed since the late 1970s or early 1980s and some with a more pronounced European dimension appeared during the 1990s. Transatlantic research-traditions in the areas of immigration, interracial or interethnic problems have also been developed at an early stage. However, the Americans have sometimes preceded their European colleagues in these emerging research and political domains. Gary Freeman, Mark Miller, Aristide Zolberg, Martin Schain and many others have been working on these issues before the massive entry of the European social scientists in the ever- increasing debates. What periodization can be set up? How to account for the specific geography of the European migration and Islam-research? How can we link the socio-spatial expansion of these research-domains to their specific chronology?

What can be the phases within a global European chronology? Establishing within a 30 to 50 years’ period a meaningful chronology of migration/Islam research requires a preliminary knowledge of historical turning-points corresponding in the political field, to specific symbolical events. The immediate post Second World War does not correspond to any significant event, until the early 1970s. The Thirty Glorious Years (1945-1975) were primarily seen as a period during which the migration-process was restricted to purely economic and manpower needs in the industrial reconstruction of post-Second World War Europe. The typical immigrant was a single working-class man, who, having left his family behind, was mostly involved in the sending country’s political struggles. His cultural and religious identity was not seen as an essential factor in his individual and collective behaviour. Much emphasis was laid on industrial strikes and class conflicts. Significant geographical and socio-economic researches were made and an initial accumulation of knowledge in the social sciences concerned with migration was then made. These socio-economic researches were then preeminent and did contribute to the ignoring of other quite fundamental¹¹ scientific activities.

The recession years (1975-1995)

Following the oil-crisis of the early 1970s and resulting unemployment, most European states started to put an end to massive labour migration. In July 1974, the government of Jacques Chirac decided to halt the massive entries of foreign workers. Economic crisis added to the dramatising of emerging political debates, in the wake of the racist disorders in Marseilles in 1973. After the Marcellin- Fontanet circular (1972) which refused to regularize illegals, the cessation of labour migration in July 1974 had many unexpected consequences. Large-scale family reunion, the intensification of illegal immigration due to the strong pull factors in the recruiting sectors (as the building sector, domestic services, clothing industry, restaurant and catering services) and the shift from industrial to political and socio-religious issues were among some of these societal repercussions.

However, within the 1975-1995 period, some meaningful political events occurred, which were seemingly outside the predicting aptitudes of most experts. From the cessation of the large-scale labour migration to the massive settlement of migrant communities within each of the European country, the entry of the second generations into the political systems and especially the religious visibility of Muslim minorities in urban Europe have been heralding these radical changes which are today taking place in that continent. As from the early 1980s, political analyses of the migrant minorities in Europe started to increase, until the sudden emergence of Islam as a second or third religion within these European states. Such changes are now included in the scientific communities’ agenda and also by specific departments of different Ministries. The European Commissions and the American-German-Italian-British Foundations have been...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Research on Immigration, Islam and Citizenship in Western Europe: How Far Has a Specific Transdisciplinary Domain Been Established?
• 2 Muslims in Italy
• 3 Foreign Immigration Comes to Spain: The Case of the Moroccans
• 4 Belgium’s Regularization of Undocumented Aliens in 2000: Sign of a New Immigration Policy?
• 5 European Citizenship and Migration
• 6 Change and Continuity in French Islam
• 7 Citizenship: Beyond Blood and Soil
• 8 Muslims and Citizenship in the United Kingdom
• 9 Promoting a Faith-based Citizenship: The Case of Tariq Ramadan
• Index