Established and outsider nationals: Immigrant–native relations and the everyday politics of national belonging

Abstract

Ideologies of national belonging and related perceptions of the need to secure the boundedness of the national entity prevail in the design of migration policy in the western world. The same ideologies also account for discourses and policies questioning the belongingness of immigrants after settlement. Prolonged stays by migrants, especially those of low class standing, are seen as a threat to the social cohesion and cultural homogeneity of the nation, and the acceptance of newcomers is provisional upon their compliance with a set of norms and behaviours, dispelling impressions of their perceived dangerous character. Such ideologies are not only macro-structural forces produced through the workings of state institutions but, equally, are enacted and contested through the practices of ‘ordinary people’ in different fields of everyday social life. Elias and Scotson’s established–outsiders model provides an appropriate theory to understand these everyday dynamics allowing for a relational perspective that situates processes of domination and resistance at the heart of the inquiry. Expanding on this model and the literature on ‘whiteness’ and everyday nationhood, this paper puts forward an intersectional theoretical framework that views immigrant–native relations as unequal configurations unfolding through a symbolic struggle over defining the nation and who belongs to it. In so doing, it brings in the dimension of power in the study of immigrant integration.