Diaspora Nation: Ireland’s Diaspora and Asylum Policies, and the Attempt to Deterritorialise the Irish State
The Irish government is attempting to use its diaspora and asylum policies to reterritorialise the Irish state into a diaspora nation. This strategy aims to police the boundaries of the Irish nation by incorporating members of the diaspora and emigrants (predominantly Irish Americans and the "undocumented Irish"), while at the same time excluding asylum seekers in Ireland. Through its diaspora policy, embodied by Global Irish, and asylum policies, represented by the Direct Provision system, the Irish government is attempting to blur the lines between state and nation by connecting the former's borders to the latter's bodies. This has produced a backlash amongst Irish citizens, who have sought to disentangle diasporic kinship from the rights of Irish citizenship by placing these communities into conversation with each other. This contrasts the state's attempt to reconfigure the same communities into markers of the borders of the Irish state and boundaries of the nation.
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