The European Union and Migrant Labour

The 'problem' of migration haunts Europe today. Spectres of floods of migrants are deployed in justification of the ever tougher walls of what some observers fear is becoming 'Fortress Europe'. In response, a growing critical literature on nationalism and racism in Europe has arisen. However, much of this discussion has remained eclectic and there is a lack of attention to the overall social processes within which migrations occur. This book fills a gap in the present literature on the European Union and gathers together some of the richest recent Marxist-inspired writing on migration. It suggests that immigration is not the problem it is frequently made out to be but rather it is immigration control and racism that require problematizing. Authors trace the contradictions between human rights and restrictions on movement, citizenship, work and social benefits to broader dynamics of capitalist development and argue that the politics of inclusion and exclusion are deeply rooted in the ideology and practices of captialism.Contributors take a critical look at the pressures guiding policy-making by combining acute analyses of the overall themes of racialization, nationalism, migration, and the development of EU migration policy, with in-depth studies of most of its member states.
Specialists of each country address the importance of demands for labour and political pressures for restrictions on immigration in the face of entrenched racisms and/or nationalism and examine the fundamental sources of conflict over migration control, bringing together categories of analysis such as labour markets and mobility, unemployment and globalization.