Conclusion

In examining in this monograph the institutions of the Scottish machinery of state in the period from 1885 to 1939 and their efforts to manage the foreignness of migrants from continental Europe, a key objective has been to demonstrate the usefulness of focusing both on the construction of institutions and on the construction of identities when considering migrant lives in new contexts. There is already a substantial historiography on the construction of national identities in Europe and here an attempt has been made to contribute to a now burgeoning historiography on the constructed nature of ethnic identities.