Immigration, Labour and Management of Otherness: Inclusion Policies in a Rural Area of the Basque Country

Abstract

Debates over immigration, ethnic diversity, inclusion policies and regimes of equality and solidarity are now frequent in European societies. In this article we analyse the representations of alterity in the field of work and the inclusion policies developed in a rural area of the Basque Country as an expression of such debates. International immigration, which began to arrive in the area in the 1990s, has occupied a hegemonic role amongst these representations of the Others and is the object of policies that interpellate it under the paradigm of social inclusion. The ‘normalising’ vocation of these policies and the welfare institutions leads to vulnerability being the form of identifying and grasping those Others. The vulnerability of the Other confronts social policies with an order of differences that generates tensions in the local society's regimes of equality. In the article we discuss the conflict of values the treatment of ethnic diversity faces in relation to social cohesion and the social welfare institutions.