SPATIAL JUSTICE AND THE IRISH CRISISChoice, constraint, spatial justice and Irish

(e)migration

Piaras Mac Éinrí

Peadar O’Donnell and Éamon De ValeraPeadar O Donnell and Éamon De ValeraPeadar O’Donnell told the tale of de Valera ringing him up after Peadar had written an angry article about how a million people had had to emigrate. Dev told him that

if h P d h d b i illi ld h even if he, Peadar, had been in power a million would have had to emigrate. Peadar, however, replied: “Ah, maybe, but it wouldn’t have been the same million” it wouldn t have been the same million.

Hi R i I lf? History Repeating Itself?

Realities of emigration in IrelandRealities of emigration in IrelandMany in Ireland had long persuaded themselves that emigration was normal, and adjusted without undue discomfort to the emigrant wave of the fifties. The Leaderb d h l l l d h d b d b h observed that many politicians were privately more relieved than disturbed by the

postwar emigration because ‘If emigration were to be stopped tomorrow conditions favourable to social revolution might easily arise’.

Many felt that much of the emigration was irrational anyway. James Dillon, who would become leader of Fine Gael only four months later, had the courage to express bluntly views normally voiced more discreetly. Dillon contended ‘that a

d l f hi lk b i i i f d d l f hi lk i di h great deal of this talk about emigration is fraud, a great deal of this talk is dishonest, a great deal of the suggestion that emigrants are driven from this country by economic want is untrue’. The essence of Dillon’s argument was that much emigration could not be attributed directed to ‘economic want’, but to the desire of

l f h h d h b l d b h l people, some of whom had the temerity to be already above the poverty line, to improve their own condition and even that of their children. Dillon here struck a not sounded frequently in official commentaries on the causes of emigration. He equated ‘economic want’ with an unchanging level of physical subsistence, counting q g g p y ganyone who abandoned a patrimony above this level as a ‘voluntary’ emigrant. The blame accordingly lay with the emigrants themselves, not with the society they left.Lee, pp 373-4

Brian Lenihan Snr, TD, 1987

What we have now is a very literate emigrant, who thinks nothing of coming to the United States and going back to Ireland and maybe on to Germany and back to Ireland again…the world i ld d h l I l d i h is now one world and they can always return to Ireland with the skills they have developed. We regard them as part of a global generation of Irish people We shouldn’t be defeatist or global generation of Irish people. We shouldn t be defeatist or pessimistic about it. We should be proud of it. After all, we can’t all live on a small islandall live on a small islandNewsweek 19 October 1987

Irish Net Migration, 1945-2012 (in 000s)

100

120

Population (in millions)

60

80

1005

Population (in millions)

40

604

0

203

-40

-20 2

Source: CSO

-80

-60Source: CSO

Sources: Walter et al. (2002) and CSO (2012).

Current Emigration Comparedg p

Who and Why?

Origins and Destinations?

Return Migration?

An outlier or just one of the ‘P.I.I.G.S.’?

Is the paradigm of spatial justice applicable to emigration from Ireland?Relevance of Soja and the spatial turn

Defining spatial equalityDefining spatial equalityLefebvreSojaYounggHarveyFoucaultFoucault

Rights to the cityRights to the cityBuilding spatial theories of justiceO h W ld S ThOther perspectives: World Systems Theory

Is emigration related to spatial justice?Is emigration related to spatial justice?Old ways of thinking about space only as physical form and background environment made the notion of socially produced background environment made the notion of socially produced spatial justice and injustice almost incomprehensible.

While the privileging of the historical and the social still persists, perhaps never before in the past 150 years has a critical spatial perspective been so widespread and influential. As the effects of consequential geographies become more widely understood, many different concepts and subject widely understood, many different concepts and subject matter that had hitherto been rarely seen from a critical spatial perspective, such as social capital and social justice, are b i i ifi tl ti li d i t f b th d being significantly spatialized in terms of both causes and effects.

Socio spatial dialecticsSocio-spatial dialecticsIt is important to stress that seeking spatial justice is not meant to be a substitute for or alternative to the search for meant to be a substitute for or alternative to the search for social, economic, or environmental justice. It is intended instead as a means of amplifying and extending these concepts into new areas of understanding and political practice Calling into new areas of understanding and political practice. Calling it spatial justice is not meant to imply that justice is determined only by its spatiality, but neither should spatial justice be seen as just one of many different components or justice be seen as just one of many different components or aspects of social justice to be comparatively gauged for their relative strength. This relativist view misses the point of the socio spatial dialectic that not only does the social comprise socio-spatial dialectic, that not only does the social comprise the spatial, it is also comprised by it. In the view taken here, everything that is social (justice included) is simultaneously and i h tl ti l j t thi ti l t l t ith d inherently spatial, just as everything spatial, at least with regard to the human world, is simultaneously and inherently socialized.

Urban or all encompassing?Urban or all-encompassing?Reflecting the introductory comments of Erik Swyngedouw, urbanization and the urban condition will figure centrally in urbanization and the urban condition will figure centrally in Seeking Spatial Justice. It should be emphasized, however, that the impressive impact of urbanization is not confined to the formal administrative boundaries of the city The urbanization formal administrative boundaries of the city. The urbanization process and along with it what can be called the urbanization of (in)justice are generated primarily in and from dense urban agglomerations but in the present age of accelerating agglomerations, but in the present age of accelerating globalization the urban condition has extended its influence to all areas: rural, suburban, metropolitan, exurban, even wilderness parkland desert tundra and rain forest In this wilderness, parkland, desert, tundra, and rain forest. In this sense, the whole world has been or is being urbanized to some degree, making the search for spatial justice relevant at

diff t hi l l f th t l b l t th many different geographical scales, from the most global to the most local, and everywhere in between.

After Soja, it will no longer be possible to benignly disregard or deliberately occlude the spatial dimension of justice

Mendieta, Eduardo CityVol 15, no 1, Feb 2011.

Discourses of emigration in IrelandDiscourses of emigration in IrelandChoice v constraint: ‘lifestyle choice’ or the return of the coffin ships?

Who is most likely to leave?Who is least likely to stay?y yWhat are the spatial dimensions of these patterns?

How useful is ‘spatial justice’?How useful is spatial justice ?The NESC survey found that the majority of recent emigrants were aged between fifteen and twenty-four years when they left the country…The NESC survey f d h 26% f h 11 300 hi d l l d i i found that 26% of the 11,300 third-level award recipients who left full-time education in 1988 had left Ireland by the following Springthe following Spring.The impact of globalisation

Small Area Clusters

1: Sparsely populated rural areas (21%)

2: Affluent suburbs (19%)

3 D l l t d b ith hi h3: Densely populated urban areas with a highconcentration of young professionals (7%)

4: Established areas with mature populations &high household ownership (24%)

5: Densely populated areas with a high ti f h h ld t d f l l th it (12%)proportion of households rented from a local authority (12%)

6: Young families with mortgages living mainly in newer 6: Young families with mortgages living mainly in newer houses (17%)

Conclusions: it’s complicatedConclusions: it s complicatedRelatively affluent and better educated are more likely to leaveThe less well qualified may be more likely to stay, a factor exacerbated by globalisationAn exception: emigration from sparsely populated rural areasClass, gender and ethnicity are all better predictors than spatiality

Towards a framework to understanding emigration and its impactsemigration and its impacts

Cultural factors: ‘historically embedded’ tradition of emigrationCultural factors: historically embedded tradition of emigrationGeographical factors: accessibility of large next-door labour marketSocial factors: an intriguing difference between Spanish and Irish behaviourE f l b l f l b lEconomic factors: employability in an age of globalisationPolicy factorsP h l i l f t ilt d i l i ti h d?Psychological factors: guilt, denial, victimhood?