Whiteness and racism: Examining the racial order in Ireland

Abstract

This article analyses labour market differentials among migrants looking at the intersections of race and nationality, as well as migrants’ perception of the racial hierarchy in Ireland. Drawing on three sources of evidence including 32 semi-structured interviews with Spanish, Polish and Nigerian migrants, the Irish 2011 census, and the database of an employability programme for migrants accessing employment and training supports from 2009 to 2011 (N = 639), it unveils the racial order in Ireland and how this disadvantages Nigerian (and by extension Black African) migrants. The three sources of data are examined within a critical race theory and racial stratification framework. The article provides a comprehensive landscape of the racial dichotomy – that is, White-over-Black ascendancy – in Ireland. The centring of race in the study illuminates the Irish organisation of racial inequality; it bypasses traditional ways of presenting data on labour market differentials as these often conceal the experiences of workers at the bottom of the social strata. It reveals the implications of racial hierarchies for workers along the labour supply chain and the whiteness of the top tiers of the Irish labour market.