Migrating to Scottish insular communities: how remoteness affects integration by shaping borders and identities

Maria Luisa Caputo, Michele Bianchi and Simone Baglioni

Chapter 7 in Assessing the Social Impact of Immigration in Europe, 2023, pp 111-128 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Migration to the Scottish Western Isles is not new, yet the early 2000s witnessed a new trend. International and notably European migrants responded to local enterprises’ call for labour resulting from an ageing and declining population. This chapter analyses the integration of migrant communities in the Western Isles, and the effect of the islands’ remoteness on political and sociocultural border representation and identity enactment. Building on qualitative interviews, we discuss how ‘making remoteness’ in the Western Isles takes the form of resistance to central spaces’ cultures and practices embodied by community landownership, respect for Sabbatarian temporality, and the common use of Gaelic. These elements are key to the local identity’s construction and performance, and thereby its borders. We argue that remote communities’ emphasis on ‘local’ homogenous identity can present an obstacle to integration, especially where this is understood as assimilation. We also investigate how awareness of incoming migrants’ important role in revitalizing these ageing and shrinking communities and in the local economy can be an essential enabler of integration.

Keywords: Development Studies; Geography; Politics and Public Policy Sociology and Social Policy; Urban and Regional Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781803927695/9781803927695.00014.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21778_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().