There’s no such thing as a good Arab: cultural essentialism and its functions concerning the integration of Arabs in Europe

Concerns about immigration are salient in the European Union and in Malta in particular. Previous research has demonstrated deep antipathy towards the Arab community in Malta, and social representations of Arabs are mired in a conflation of ethnic and religious categories with negative connotations. This paper presents evidence of the potency, within the public sphere, of negative arguments from cultural essentialism, concerning the integration of Arabs in Europe. The data was obtained abductively from a data corpus containing positive, mixed and negative arguments about Arabs and their integration. Results show evidence of the almost total exclusivity of cultural essentialism. All such arguments posited Arabic culture as an underlying essence that makes integration with Arabs difficult or impossible, yet different arguments were distinguishable by emphasis. Results pointed towards forms of culturally essentialist views that vary in their emphasis of different aspects of cultural essentialism. Reductionist, determinist, bounded and temporal aspects of cultural essentialism were all emphasised by respondents. The essentialist exceptions to negative arguments from cultural essentialism were extremely few in number and were posed tentatively by participants. Their paucity and manner of delivery give strength to the claim that it is strictly an Arabic cultural essence that is deemed to make integration impossible in the eyes of participants. Findings are discussed in light of the communicative functions that these dominant argumentative strategies fulfill.