Public and Political Discourses of Migration

Popular, political and media discourses frame the issue of migration and shape how and when it enters the public and political consciousness. These discourses are of crucial importance as they influence both the general public’s perception of migration and the policies which regulate both the act of migration itself and migrant residents.

Public and Political Discourses of Migration brings together an interdisciplinary group of established and emerging scholars, whose work interrogates the relationship between discourse and migration. Through the application of a variety of theoretical lenses drawn from the broad canon of discourse studies, each contribution unpicks the productive power of discourse in shaping the reality of migration, migration policy and migrant lives in the twenty-first century. The cases examined emerge, as do their authors, from a wide spectrum of national, political and cultural contexts. They are linked by their fundamental questioning of ‘common sense’ and ahistorical approaches to migration. They address the question of whose interests are served by prevailing discourses and the structures they underpin. Ultimately, they ‘make strange’ accepted ‘truths’ regarding migration in the twenty-first century.

Amanda Haynes is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick.

Martin J. Power is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick.

Eoin Devereux is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick.

Aileen Dillane is an ethnomusicologist based in the Irish World Academy at the University of Limerick.

James Carr is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Limerick.