"This is an EU crisis requiring an EU solution": Nation and transnational talk in negotiating warrants for further inclusion of refugees

Abstract

Social psychological research on social exclusion/inclusion of migrants, refugees, and, asylum-seekers has shown how problematic descriptions of these others- are made in ways to negotiate their exclusion. However, little research has examined how inclusion of those worked-up as others- is negotiated. This study examines negotiating the inclusion of refugees and migrants. It does so through a discursive analysis of transcribed talk in the Dil ireaan [Irish Parliament]. Debates and parliamentary proceedings in the Dil between January 1, 2015 and February 3, 2016 (end of the 31st Dil session), when issues migration and refugees were prominent, were sourced to examine how warrants for inclusion were made, received, and, negotiated. These transcripts were subject to discursive analysis that focused on how Teachta Dla or TDs (Members of the Irish Parliament) worked-up and oriented to exclusion/inclusion of migrants and refugees in warranting/rejecting specific policies. Findings show that, first, TDs routinely work-up state of affairs in problematic ways through descriptors such as 'crisis', 'plight of refugees', or 'loss of life' during migration. Second, TDs cast Ireland's response to this state of affairs in terms of its membership in the European Union. This was done to warrant inclusionary policies towards migrants and refugees, and, to justify these policies when criticized for their limited impact. Versions of Ireland as an EU member state were used to warrant and negotiate policies as an outcome of belonging to this political group than as an independent nation with its own responsibilities and obligations. These findings show that studies on inclusion can usefully examine how specific versions of those already and always included are flexibly employed, alongside versions of others-.