A very ‘prudent integration’: white flight, school segregation and the depoliticization of (anti-)racism

Abstract

This article explores the contemporary legitimation of institutional racism resulting from the prevailing depoliticized framework of integration, which became prominent in the 1960s and is now hegemonic in political and academic debate in Europe. Integration has helped shift the focus to the supposed cultural inadequacies of ethnically marked populations, who ought to show a willingness to pursue the modern dream; simultaneously, it has invisibilized institutional racism and made an anti-racist repertoire unavailable. This argument is illustrated through a case of white flight and school segregation in a rural area in Portugal, revealing both the enduring racism against the Roma/Gypsies – suppressed and repressed throughout the last five centuries in Europe – and its depoliticization within the normal working of institutions. It draws on qualitative research with representatives from public bodies and mediating agents (e.g. teachers and social workers), as well as on analysis of the official reports by the Portuguese state and European institutions.