Migrant-Led Activism and Integration from Below in Recession Ireland

In view of changing migration patterns and the Irish state’s immigration and integration policies, this chapter focuses on migrants’ responses to settlement in Ireland. In particular, it focuses on the creation of migrant-led associations, the subject of the Trinity Immigration Initiative’s Migrant Networks Project, evidencing migrants’ creative response to migration and resettlement. The chapter begins by discussing the implications of Irish interculturalism for migrant-led activism. It then outlines three migrant-led campaigns, the campaign against the ban on the Sikh turban in police service, the Irish Hijab Campaign, and Anti Deportation Ireland. The argument is that migrant activism is bounded by the narrow space accorded to it in an inhospitable socio-political climate. This is compounded by reduced finding since the recession, the subject of the conclusion.