Migraciones. Publicación del Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones
type: channel
description: Migraciones is an interdisciplinary academic journal published by the University Institute for Migration Studies (IUEM) at Comillas Pontifical University. It aims to publish quality research that delves into the study of human mobility in open access, both in Spanish and English, prioritising articles that address critical and current issues by applying the most advanced methodologies. It is published twice a year (January and June). Issue 0 was published in December 1996. The journal Migraciones follows an open-access publication system, whereby both the publication and reading of works are exempt from fees. All published content is fully available for free and immediate consultation and download on the journal's website. Migraciones is indexed Scopus , Latindex, InDICEs CSIC, Emerging Sources Citation Index, and others. First decision in 5 days Acceptance rate of 20,5% Scopus 2024: Q1 in Cultural Studies (201/1371) and Q2 en Demography (56/140)
publisher: Universidad Pontificia Comillas
language: en
publication name: Migraciones. Publicación del Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones
issn: 1138-5774
copyright: The authors of articles published in Migraciones retain the intellectual property rights over their works and grant the journal their distribution and public communication rights, consenting to their publication under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors are encouraged to publish their work on the Internet (for example, on institutional or personal pages, repositories, etc.) respecting the conditions of this license and quoting appropriately the original source.
items: The Functional Cage: Historical Continuity and Migrant Experience in the municipality of Murcia (Southeast Spain)
items: Descendants of Moroccan Migrants in Spain: The Emergence of a Diaspora: The Case of the Community of Madrid
items: Loïc Wacquant (2024). Racial domination
items: Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder: An Account of Place Attractivity in a Romanian Left-behind Area
items: The value of diversity: Women’s Strategic Role in the Renaissance of Left-behind Areas in Italy
items: Survey Research as a Tool for Studying Migration in Latin America
items: Claudia Masferrer, Erin R. Hamilton y Nicole Denier (2025). The Returned
items: Migration, Extractivism, and Necropolitics in the Peruvian Amazon: The Trafficking of Women in Neo-extractive Enclaves
items: Health and Migration: Intersectional and Gender Barriers in Healthcare Access for African Women in The Basque Country
items: Inequalities in the International Academic Mobility of Brazilians (2012-2022): An Analysis of Data from Federal Science Funding Agencies (Capes and CNPq)
items: Place Attachment, Identities and Mobility Experiences. Evidence From a Left Behind Area in Romania
items: Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Rural Tourism in a Left-Behind Region, Sayago (Zamora, Spain)
items: Social Innovation and Human Mobility in Left Behind Areas: Strategies to Cope with Peripherality in Southern Cilento and Viù Valley (Italy)
items: Between Integration and Work in Three Shifts: Exploring Integration Dynamics in an East German Rural Town
items: Islandness, Human Mobility and Left-Behindness: Insights from El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain
items: Frontline Practices and Ambivalent Roles in the Reception and Integration of Immigrants in a Rural Area in Portugal
items: The Social Representation of Japan among Hispano-American Professional Immigrants: Symbolic Dimensions Beyond Economic Motivations
items: On Women’s Shoulders: Care-Based Immobility and Climate Adaptation in Rural Ghana
items: Towards a Politicization and Historicization of “Climate Migration”: A Political Ecology Perspective on Global Mobility under Capitalism
items: Disciplining Poverty: “Migrant” Workers in the Maze of German Welfare Bureaucracy
items: Alessandra Galimberti Prince (2025). Arte y diáspora
items: Shifting the Perspective: A Political Ecology of Migration attentive to gendered and racialised inequalities
items: Racialisation, Discrimination, and Ethnic Identity among Spanish Gitanos: The Test of Mixedness
items: Introduction: Towards a Racial Turn in Spanish Scholarship on Migration and Diversity
items: Humanitarianism and Asylum: The Ambiguous Governance of International Protection in Madrid from the Perspective of Institutional Actors
items: Deconstructing Existing Narratives: A Critical Reassessment of Climate-Driven Migration Dynamics in Africa and Namibia
items: For a Latin American Political Ecology of Climate (Im)mobilities
items: Manufacturing Crisis, Governing Instability: The Political Ecology of Migration, Power, and Ecocide
items: From Adaptive Resilience to the Production of the Common. An Analytical Framework for Rethinking Immobility in the Context of Climate Crisis
items: Framing Climate Mobility: A Discourse Analysis of Spanish Newspapers

The Functional Cage: Historical Continuity and Migrant Experience in the municipality of Murcia (Southeast Spain)
type: item
description: This article analyzes the model of migrant integration in the municipality of Murcia (southeastern Spain) from a socio-historical and ethnographic perspective. Through the concept of the “functional cage,” it interprets the incorporation of immigrants as a form of economic inclusion subordinated to social exclusion. The methodology is based on a qualitative approach that combines participant observation and 60 semi-structured interviews conducted with both native and immigrant populations, which were processed through qualitative content analysis. The findings reveal a historical continuity in the utilitarian management of labor, inherited from Murcia’s own emigrant past. The study concludes that contemporary integration operates within a mosaic of perception that hierarchically classifies groups according to their utility and origin, thereby underscoring the need for a paradigm grounded in rights rather than solely in economic functionality.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: immigration
  topic: keywords
subject: social history
  topic: keywords
subject: ethnography
  topic: keywords
subject: integration
  topic: keywords
creator: Nicolás Henao-Bard
creator: María José Vilar-García
creator: Ramón García Marín
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 27
doi: 10.14422/mig.24368.020

Descendants of Moroccan Migrants in Spain: The Emergence of a Diaspora: The Case of the Community of Madrid
type: item
description: This article analyzes processes of identity construction among descendants of Moroccan migrants in Spain. Based on a qualitative methodology and 17 interviews conducted in the Community of Madrid, the study examines the articulation of a postmigrant “Moroccanness” as an identity category mobilized by these individuals. The findings show that this Moroccanness is shaped across multiple sites of socialization—family, community, Spanish society, and the parents’ country of origin—giving rise to distinct forms of collective identification. The article argues that descendants of Moroccan migrants in Spain are participating in the emergence of a diaspora, understood as a shared subjectivity symbolically oriented toward Morocco and socially situated in Spain. This research provides significant empirical and conceptual insights into the study of migration, identity, and diasporas in the contemporary European context.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: migrant descendants
  topic: keywords
subject: Moroccan migration
  topic: keywords
subject: diaspora
  topic: keywords
subject: Moroccanness
  topic: keywords
subject: identity
  topic: keywords
creator: Rafael Camarero
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 19
doi: 10.14422/mig.24350.025

Loïc Wacquant (2024). Racial domination
type: item
subject: Reseñas de libros
  topic: section
creator: Diana Mata-Codesal
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-03-13
publication date: 2026-03-13
starting page: 1
ending page: 4

Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder: An Account of Place Attractivity in a Romanian Left-behind Area
type: item
description: During the COVID-19 pandemic, in-migration to rural areas increased. Mobility and socialization restrictions led many people to seek larger houses and green spaces in rural areas, perceived as safer. In these flows, privileged destinations tend to be near large urban areas or scenic landscapes. However, much less is known about place attractivity in less popular, peripheral areas. A country with large rural-urban disparities, Romania also has diverse rural contexts with unequal development trajectories. Drawing on 34 interviews with people having different (im)mobility experiences in a peripheral area, this paper asks what makes the area attractive to residents. Using thematic analysis, we show that place attractivity is constructed at the intersection of physical place features, material conditions, symbolic ties, and everyday practices, counterbalancing perceptions of peripherality, and transforming peripherality into welcoming places.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: place attractivity
  topic: keywords
subject: left-behind area
  topic: keywords
subject: return motivations
  topic: keywords
subject: staying motivations
  topic: keywords
creator: Mădălina Manoilă
creator: Alexandra Deliu
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-17
publication date: 2026-07-17
starting page: 1
ending page: 20
doi: 10.14422/mig.24199.028

The value of diversity: Women’s Strategic Role in the Renaissance of Left-behind Areas in Italy
type: item
description: Starting from the theoretical and research findings developed within the Horizon Europe Re-Place Project, this paper analyses the specificity of female migratory pathways in left-behind areas. It emphasizes the importance of a gender-sensitive perspective in restoring a “sense of place” in regions often overlooked by public policies. Focusing on national and international mobility dynamics in specific Italian areas—especially in the post-pandemic context—the research highlights women as central protagonists. While affective and subjective dimensions shape all migratory pathways, female mobility presents a particular complexity where intimate motivations are deeply intertwined with economic and systemic factors. This complexity is compounded by the systemic disadvantages and exclusions faced by women—issues that have worsened since the pandemic, despite a recovery in mobility. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, the study combines extensive data from leading research with key players and individuals. Through in-depth interviews, it investigates how gender functions as a social structure and examines both the amplification of inequalities and the emergence of potential paradigm shifts. Particular attention is given to how women’s transformative roles in small municipalities foster plural, community-oriented contexts, combat gender gaps, and contribute to territorial regeneration.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: women
  topic: keywords
subject: migration
  topic: keywords
subject: left-behind areas
  topic: keywords
subject: soft power
  topic: keywords
subject: social and cultural innovation
  topic: keywords
subject: generativity
  topic: keywords
creator: Mihaela Gavrila
creator: Camilla Rumi
creator: Barbara Staniscia
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-17
publication date: 2026-07-17
starting page: 1
ending page: 24
doi: 10.14422/mig.23994.026

Survey Research as a Tool for Studying Migration in Latin America
type: item
subject: Presentación
  topic: section
creator: Elena Sánchez-Montijano
creator: Pablo Nicolás Biderbost Moyano
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-01-29
publication date: 2026-01-29
starting page: 1
ending page: 18
doi: 10.14422/mig.i65.2026

Claudia Masferrer, Erin R. Hamilton y Nicole Denier (2025). The Returned
type: item
subject: Reseñas de libros
  topic: section
creator: Pablo Caraballo
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 3

Migration, Extractivism, and Necropolitics in the Peruvian Amazon: The Trafficking of Women in Neo-extractive Enclaves
type: item
description: This article examines migration flows to neoextractivist enclaves within the framework of necropolitics and the political ecology of migration. It explores how degraded territories, shaped by illegal mining, human trafficking, and the sex trade, function as both forces of expulsion and attraction. The theoretical framework integrates concepts of accumulation by dispossession and extractive biopolitics to understand how state control, labor precarization, and violence create differentiated mobility regimes, particularly affecting migrant women. The study focuses on Madre de Dios in the Peruvian Amazon, a region characterized by environmental degradation and territorial control through illicit economies, despite the state's claims of biodiversity protection. Using qualitative methods, including document analysis and interviews with local actors, the research reveals that historical configurations of territorial exploitation influence migration patterns in these enclaves. The article contributes to the political ecology of migration by demonstrating how extractive economies and structural inequalities shape migration flows in necropolitical contexts.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: migration
  topic: keywords
subject: neo-extractive enclaves
  topic: keywords
subject: sexual exploitation
  topic: keywords
subject: necropolitics
  topic: keywords
creator: Sofía Chacaltana Cortez
creator: Hatsumi Otsu
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-01-19
publication date: 2026-01-19
starting page: 1
ending page: 25
doi: 10.14422/mig.23441.034

Health and Migration: Intersectional and Gender Barriers in Healthcare Access for African Women in The Basque Country
type: item
description: This article examines the barriers migrant women from Central and East Africa face in accessing the Basque healthcare system. Using a qualitative methodology based on interviews with women, healthcare professionals, and social organizations, it identifies structural, administrative, and symbolic obstacles that limit the exercise of the right to health. These include irregular legal status, lack of accessible information, job insecurity, institutional racism and sexism, and medical ignorance about common diseases in this population. In addition, there is little sensitivity to the psychosocial suffering associated with the migration process. From an intersectional and feminist perspective, the analysis shows how these barriers generate inequality and mistrust of the system. The article concludes with proposals for moving towards more intercultural, empathetic healthcare that is adapted to the realities of migrants, as a necessary condition for ensuring a more equitable public health system that respects diversity.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: women’s health
  topic: keywords
subject: Central East Africa
  topic: keywords
subject: migrant women
  topic: keywords
subject: Basque Country
  topic: keywords
subject: intersectionality
  topic: keywords
creator: Nuria Lores
creator: Jesús Migallón
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-04-20
publication date: 2026-04-20
starting page: 1
ending page: 22
doi: 10.14422/mig.23939.016

Inequalities in the International Academic Mobility of Brazilians (2012-2022): An Analysis of Data from Federal Science Funding Agencies (Capes and CNPq)
type: item
description: Driven in Brazil by the internationalization of graduate education, the international academic mobility of Brazilians has been promoted since the 1960s and is currently implemented mainly at the federal level by the Ministries of Education and of Science, Technology and Innovation, through Capes and CNPq. This study investigates—within the broader context of graduate internationalization and international “brain circulation”—the dynamics and profile of Brazilian academic mobility over the past decade, with particular attention to social inequalities. Drawing on public quantitative data, we analyze how academic mobility patterns intersect with categories such as race, gender, and geopolitical destination. Between 2012 and 2022, approximately 64,000 Brazilians received government support to conduct academic research abroad. Most of these scholars were hosted by institutions in Global North countries, highlighting persistent asymmetries in the international academic system. Although distribution of scholarships between men and women is relatively balanced, gender disparities remain across specific fields of knowledge. Racial inequalities are more pronounced: the majority of scholarships were awarded to white individuals, revealing limited racial diversity among beneficiaries. These findings suggest that, despite efforts to democratize access to international academic opportunities, structural barriers related to race and global hierarchies continue to shape who benefits from state-sponsored mobility programs in Brazil and their destinations abroad.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: internationalization of graduate education
  topic: keywords
subject: international academic mobility
  topic: keywords
subject: brain circulation
  topic: keywords
subject: international graduate scholarships
  topic: keywords
subject: academic inequalities
  topic: keywords
subject: Brazilian higher education
  topic: keywords
creator: Camila Escudero
creator: Alex Guedes Brum
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-05-19
publication date: 2026-05-19
starting page: 1
ending page: 25
doi: 10.14422/mig.23741.018

Place Attachment, Identities and Mobility Experiences. Evidence From a Left Behind Area in Romania
type: item
description: Left-behind areas are characterised by poor job prospects, disconnection from major urban centres, limited access to basic services, and a sense of discontent among residents. Major socioeconomic changes over the last decades (deindustrialisation, population ageing, out-migration) are believed to have disrupted place attachments and reframed identity, and that restoring them would contribute to the revitalisation of the areas. In this paper, we investigate how migration experiences contribute to shaping local and national identity and place attachment in the case of a left behind area in Romania, a country with a rich experience of international migration after 1989, known as one of the most important sending countries and also one of the poorest within the EU, with significant regional disparities. For this, we use qualitative data gathered within the Re-Place project, specifically interviews conducted with people in the case study area. In our analysis, we consider individuals’ mobility trajectories and discuss identity and place attachment across three subgroups: non-migrants, internal in-migrants, and international in-migrants. Contrary to our initial expectations, we found that exposure to alterity, especially through international migration, does not significantly narrow the content of national identity. Moreover, local identity and affective bonds to the community appeared more salient than national identity, with no differences between the three groups.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: national identity
  topic: keywords
subject: local identity
  topic: keywords
subject: place attachment
  topic: keywords
subject: international mobility
  topic: keywords
subject: internal mobility
  topic: keywords
creator: Alexandra Deliu
creator: Mădălina Manoilă
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 21
doi: 10.14422/mig.23897.024

Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Rural Tourism in a Left-Behind Region, Sayago (Zamora, Spain)
type: item
description: Rural Sayago (Zamora, Spain), on the Portuguese border, exemplifies long-term depopulation and ageing processes in Southern Europe. This study examines the tourism-migration nexus, asking how tourism development influences the arrival, settlement and economic incorporation of internal and international immigrants. We combine qualitative fieldwork from two projects—semi-structured interviews with migrant entrepreneurs in accommodation, hospitality and agritourism—with analysis of official demographic data. Results show that tourism-related activities enable livelihood diversification and self-employment that support newcomer settlement, especially internal in-migrants with inherited property and lifestyle international immigrants. Newcomers act as innovators, expanding rural accommodation and experience-based offers. However, seasonality, thin markets and limited services constrain broader demographic recovery. We conclude that rural tourism can stabilise population locally by enabling immigrant settlement, but it requires place-based policies that strengthen everyday infrastructures and trans-border coordination.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: rural tourism
  topic: keywords
subject: agritourism
  topic: keywords
subject: immigration
  topic: keywords
subject: local development
  topic: keywords
subject: Sayago (Zamora)
  topic: keywords
creator: Mercedes Ángeles Rodríguez Rodríguez
creator: Cristóbal Mendoza
creator: Josefina Domínguez-Mujica
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-04-20
publication date: 2026-04-20
starting page: 1
ending page: 25
doi: 10.14422/mig.23857.014

Social Innovation and Human Mobility in Left Behind Areas: Strategies to Cope with Peripherality in Southern Cilento and Viù Valley (Italy)
type: item
description: This paper examines the reciprocal relationship between social innovation and human mobility in two Italian left-behind areas: Southern Cilento (Campania) and Viù Valley (Piedmont). Drawing on 104 in-depth interviews with stakeholders, newcomers, returnees, out-migrants, and long-term residents, it investigates how different mobility patterns interact with locally grounded forms of social innovation. Interviews were analysed through thematic coding, followed by qualitative cross-case and place-based comparison. Findings show that mobility serves as both a catalyst for and a product of social innovation. Mobile actors bring skills, networks and imagination, which stimulate collective learning, organisational experimentation, and the development of cultural events, tourist trails and community infrastructures. These, in turn, generate temporary, circular, and sometimes permanent mobilities. The two cases reveal marked differences in the institutional scaffolding supporting these dynamics. Overall, the analysis reveals that social innovation and mobility co-evolve through their multi-scalar feedback loops, offering pathways for renewal in left-behind areas.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: social innovation
  topic: keywords
subject: human mobility
  topic: keywords
subject: local development
  topic: keywords
subject: left-behind areas
  topic: keywords
subject: Italy
  topic: keywords
creator: Barbara Staniscia
creator: Astrid Safina
creator: Giulia Fiorentino
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 28
doi: 10.14422/mig.23832.023

Between Integration and Work in Three Shifts: Exploring Integration Dynamics in an East German Rural Town
type: item
description: In recent years, rural areas in Europe have increasingly experienced international immigration, in some cases for the first time. While labour immigration in Germany has been praised for benefiting local economies, immigrants’ social integration and the level of well-being have often been sidelined. This paper applies contact theory to examine the role of contact in integration process of labour migrants in a rural town in Thuringia, East Germany. Moving beyond the idea of integration as assimilation, we expand the horizontal approach to integration research by comparing perspectives of two groups—newcomers and locals. Findings suggest that immigrants’ material contributions do not compensate for their need for societal contribution. Our research also highlights the importance of shared places for encounter in rural areas and shows that their absence leads to integration being imposed, rather than negotiated.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: international migration
  topic: keywords
subject: labour migration
  topic: keywords
subject: integration
  topic: keywords
subject: rural areas
  topic: keywords
subject: rural development
  topic: keywords
subject: East Germany
  topic: keywords
creator: Mila Miletić
creator: Erik Sacha
creator: Daniel Göler
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 22
doi: 10.14422/mig.23822.022

Islandness, Human Mobility and Left-Behindness: Insights from El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain
type: item
description: The relationship between left-behindness and islandness is intricate and multifaceted. Small and peripheral islands are particularly susceptible to environmental challenges and economic downturns due to their limited resources for survival, which have historically shaped them as left-behind areas. However, while islands have long been viewed as places of departure, they also function as hubs for migrants, asylum seekers, tourists, and returnees, i.e., as spaces collectively modelled by human mobility. Therefore, islands are both peripheral and interconnected spaces, with relationality forming the core of islandness. The “relational isolation” is exemplified by the case of El Hierro in the Canary Islands, where human mobility may contribute to the mitigation of left-behindness. This analytical perspective is explored using statistical data that elucidates trends in human mobility, complemented by interviews with both migrants and stayers. These qualitative accounts offer critical insights into the migratory experience and its complex relationship with islandness.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: left-behindness
  topic: keywords
subject: islandness
  topic: keywords
subject: human mobility
  topic: keywords
subject: El Hierro (Canary Islands -Spain)
  topic: keywords
creator: Josefina Domínguez-Mujica
creator: Juan Manuel Parreño-Castellano
creator: Claudio Jesús Moreno-Medina
creator: Mercedes Á. Rodríguez-Rodríguez
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-04-20
publication date: 2026-04-20
starting page: 1
ending page: 25
doi: 10.14422/mig.23791.015

Frontline Practices and Ambivalent Roles in the Reception and Integration of Immigrants in a Rural Area in Portugal
type: item
description: In Portugal, rural areas have increasingly become immigrant destinations, and attracting them forms part of rural revitalisation strategies. However, these arrivals challenge municipalities with limited resources and capacity. Drawing on a qualitative case study in a municipality located in the Lower Alentejo region in southern Portugal, characterised by demographic decline and growing dependence on migrant agricultural labour, this article analyses frontline professionals’ practices in immigrant reception and integration in a rural context. Within street-level bureaucracy and bordering practices, the analysis employs four analytical dimensions: structural scarcity and labour precarity of immigrants, formal and informal mechanisms, stereotypical representations, and migration-related tensions. The findings show how resource scarcity, political neglect, and tensions surrounding immigration reconfigure discretion and moral agency, requiring strategies beyond formal frameworks. This exposes tensions between a temporary-labour immigration model and structures designed for permanent population, where professionals perform ambivalent roles, facilitating or constraining access to services and rights.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: frontline practices
  topic: keywords
subject: street-level bureaucracy
  topic: keywords
subject: integration processes
  topic: keywords
subject: rural areas in demographic decline
  topic: keywords
creator: Natalia Curci
creator: Jennifer McGarrigle
creator: Alina Esteves
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-17
publication date: 2026-07-17
starting page: 1
ending page: 24
doi: 10.14422/mig.23801.027

The Social Representation of Japan among Hispano-American Professional Immigrants: Symbolic Dimensions Beyond Economic Motivations
type: item
description: This article examines how Hispano-American professionals constructed pre-migration representations of Japan as a meaningful destination, and how cultural exposure shaped symbolic imaginaries of aspirational mobility. Drawing on Social Representations Theory and a mixed-methods design (prototypical analysis, semantic network analysis, interviews, and surveys with 181 Japan residents who arrived in the twenty-first century), the study reveals a hierarchically structured image anchored in excellence, visual culture, learning, and safety. These reflect core cultural and growth-learning orientations with peripheral economic elements. Early and sustained exposure to Japanese media emerges as a key mechanism of objectification and anchoring, positioning Japan as a desirable destination in the absence of ethnic or institutional networks. Findings demonstrate that migration involves meaning-making, where cultural fascination, personal development, and aspirational identity coalesce, contributing a symbolic and cognitive dimension to migration theory.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: international migration
  topic: keywords
subject: social representation
  topic: keywords
subject: foreign professionals
  topic: keywords
subject: Japan
  topic: keywords
subject: Hispano-Americans
  topic: keywords
creator: Marcelo Alejandro Piffaut-Gálvez
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-05-19
publication date: 2026-05-19
starting page: 1
ending page: 27
doi: 10.14422/mig.23790.017

On Women’s Shoulders: Care-Based Immobility and Climate Adaptation in Rural Ghana
type: item
description: This article examines the gendered dynamics of climate-related migration and immobility in rural Ghana, focusing on the Bono and Bono East regions. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2022 and 2023, it explores how male out-migration, often framed as an adaptive response to environmental stress, reshapes the gendered distribution of labor, women’s responsibilities, and their opportunities for mobility. The study introduces the concept of care-based immobility as a central analytical contribution. It conceptualizes women’s staying as a socially produced condition rooted in three interrelated domains—economic management, food security, and caregiving. These responsibilities simultaneously anchor women geographically while enabling household and community survival, demonstrating that immobility operates as both a structural constraint and an active strategy of climate adaptation. By integrating feminist political ecology with critical mobility and immobility frameworks, the analysis moves beyond environmentally deterministic narratives of climate migration and situates women’s (im)mobility within relational socio-ecological hierarchies. The article thus underscores the importance of gender-sensitive and locally grounded approaches to climate resilience.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: climate change adaptation
  topic: keywords
subject: care-based immobility
  topic: keywords
subject: feminist political ecology
  topic: keywords
subject: Ghana
  topic: keywords
subject: women’s agency
  topic: keywords
creator: Mariachiara Boldrini
creator: Valeria Saggiomo
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-03-13
publication date: 2026-03-13
starting page: 1
ending page: 21
doi: 10.14422/mig.23420.012

Towards a Politicization and Historicization of “Climate Migration”: A Political Ecology Perspective on Global Mobility under Capitalism
type: item
description: The climate change discourse that emerged in the 1990s has foregrounded climate-induced migration; yet, terms such as environmental refugee or climate migrant, frequently invoked in public debate, remain undefined within international refugee law, generating legal ambiguities and gaps in protection. This absence is not merely terminological but reflects historical frameworks that excluded ecological considerations from migration governance. Drawing on political ecology, Marxist scholarship, and Moore’s world-ecology approach, this paper critically examines the limitations of climate migration debates when disconnected from the structural dynamics of global capitalism. It situates mobility within the long-term transformation of socio-ecological relations, emphasizing that displacement is both a product and a driver of capitalist expansion, ecological change, and uneven power relations. By framing climate-induced migration within historical and structural processes, the paper highlights the necessity of critically reassessing mobility classifications in light of alarmist and securitarian frameworks and the war regime emerging from the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s military action in Gaza since 2023.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: mobility
  topic: keywords
subject: climate migration
  topic: keywords
subject: environmental refugee
  topic: keywords
subject: Capitalocene
  topic: keywords
subject: political ecology
  topic: keywords
creator: Arianna Poletti
creator: Gennaro Avallone
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-02-23
publication date: 2026-02-23
starting page: 1
ending page: 21
doi: 10.14422/mig.23450.005

Disciplining Poverty: “Migrant” Workers in the Maze of German Welfare Bureaucracy
type: item
description: This article examines migrant workers’ experiences with the German welfare state, drawing on three empirical studies conducted in Berlin (2014-2021) with rejected third-country asylum seekers and Southern and Eastern European Union citizens. It highlights how state bureaucracies implement selective access to welfare through everyday practices conceptualised as “bureaucratic violence” (Graeber, 2012), which are the product of interaction between legislative frameworks, their implementation by frontline officials, and legitimising discourses. Despite migrants’ diverse legal statuses, common patterns in their interactions with the public administration are identified through four analytical dimensions—“administrative temporality,” “discretionary micro-power,” “moral economy of deservingness,” and “linguistic and racialised bordering practices”—which are traced comparatively across three distinct migrant groups within the same national welfare system. The analysis reveals how bureaucratic practices shape power relations between local authorities and migrants, producing structural disadvantages and transnational vulnerabilities. Institutions such as the Jobcenter and the Foreigners’ Office (Ausländerbehörde) are understood as key sites where neoliberal border and welfare regimes filter access to rights and social participation.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: migrant workers
  topic: keywords
subject: welfare state
  topic: keywords
subject: Germany
  topic: keywords
subject: bureaucratic violence
  topic: keywords
subject: deservingness
  topic: keywords
subject: racialization
  topic: keywords
creator: Elena Fontanari
creator: Simone Castellani
creator: Giulia Borri
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-07-03
publication date: 2026-07-03
starting page: 1
ending page: 24
doi: 10.14422/mig.23752.021

Alessandra Galimberti Prince (2025). Arte y diáspora
type: item
subject: Reseñas de libros
  topic: section
creator: Gema Gómez Álvaro
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-01-29
publication date: 2026-01-29
starting page: 1
ending page: 3

Shifting the Perspective: A Political Ecology of Migration attentive to gendered and racialised inequalities
type: item
description: This article argues that in a world where the ecological and material consequences of climate changes are becoming increasingly tangible, mobilisation and reproduction of the dominant categories of economic migration and political asylum become problematic. While the “reflexive turn” in migration studies called for a critical assessment of the use of state-determined migration categories in migration research, the ways in which political ecology could achieve that and related implications for migration studies have been little discussed. This article seeks to uncover the epistemological and political stakes that underpin the study of climate-related migration by foregrounding the venues opened up by political ecology perspectives. The article equally outlines how discussions around climate-related migrations can serve to bridge political ecology perspectives with more established venues within migration studies, notably intersectional approaches to migration, drawing in particular on gender studies as well as analytical engagement with racialised inequalities.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: migration
  topic: keywords
subject: political ecology
  topic: keywords
subject: intersectionality
  topic: keywords
subject: gender
  topic: keywords
subject: race
  topic: keywords
creator: Nina Sahraoui
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-03-13
publication date: 2026-03-13
starting page: 1
ending page: 24
doi: 10.14422/mig.23474.010

Racialisation, Discrimination, and Ethnic Identity among Spanish Gitanos: The Test of Mixedness
type: item
description: In Spain, and in Europe in general, research on racism and racialisation has mostly focused on foreign-born immigrants. Much less attention has been given to national ethnic minorities, in particular to Gitanos (Spanish Roma), the longest-established and largest ethnic minority group in the country, and also one of the most discriminated-against minority groups throughout Spanish history. This article presents research that has applied the study of mixedness (i.e., mixed couples and their descendants), a sociocultural phenomenon that is thought to “dilute” differences and destabilise social boundaries, to investigate the persistence of the social stigmatisation and racialisation of Spanish Roma. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and 81 in-depth interviews with Roma/non-Roma couples, their descendants, and community representatives, this study, shows that even intermarried Gitanos and Spanish-born descendants of Gitano/non-Gitano mixed couples are stigmatised as being outsiders and experience everyday racism, as well as intragroup prejudices, all of which affect their identity choices, social interactions, and everyday lives. The study also concludes that individuals have different strategies for coping with racism and discrimination and that Gitano identity (romanipen) remains dynamic and resilient—strengthened, not weakened—through mixing, a finding that challenges essentialist understandings of ethnic identities and ethnic minority groups.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: Spanish Roma/gitanos
  topic: keywords
subject: intermarriage
  topic: keywords
subject: ethnic identity
  topic: keywords
subject: mixed race
  topic: keywords
subject: racism
  topic: keywords
subject: discrimination
  topic: keywords
creator: Dan Rodríguez-García
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Migraciones. Publicación del Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones
date: 2025-10-15
publication date: 2025-10-15
starting page: 1
ending page: 30
doi: 10.14422/mig.22022.021

Introduction: Towards a Racial Turn in Spanish Scholarship on Migration and Diversity
type: item
description: This special issue aims to contribute to the debate on race, racialisation and racism in Spain from a perspective that combines theoretical analysis and empirical studies. We take a systemic understanding of racial relations as our point of departure and focus on the Spanish context. Our objective is twofold: First, we want to challenge a persistent “colour-blindness” and a widely spread silence about race in European societies (Lentin, 2018; Song, 2018; El Tayed, 2021), as well as in Spain (Rodríguez-García, 2022; Rodríguez-García et al., 2021), which has permeated research on migration, diversity, interculturalism and ethnic relations. As Omi and Winant (1994, p. 159) pointed out “opposing racism requires that we notice race [… and] that we afford it the recognition it deserves and the subtlety it embodies.” This will contribute to a deeper understanding of the processes that shape and reconfigure racial categories. Furthermore, it will advance knowledge on the concept of “race” and its intersections with other social categories, such as class, gender, and migration status, highlighting how these intersections fundamentally shape social interactions, power structures, and various forms of inequality. Second, with this special issue we intend to provide a collection of empirically based research about racialisation processes, racial categories and racial relations in the case of Spain. The contributors to this special issue are Spanish and international scholars based in Spain who conduct their research at the forefront of the ongoing “racial turn” in Spanish academia (see, e.g. Hellgren, 2025; Suárez-Navaz & Suárez, 2024; Rodríguez-Reche & Cerchiaro, 2023; Hellgren & Bereményi, 2022; Rodríguez-García, 2022; Hellgren & Gabrielli, 2021). All of the contributors place race, racialisation and racism at the core of migration and minority studies, both in the Spanish context and internationally. This endeavour is necessary to look transversally to the processes of other…
subject: Presentación
  topic: section
subject: Race
  topic: keywords
subject: Racialisation
  topic: keywords
subject: Systemic racism
  topic: keywords
subject: Interculturality
  topic: keywords
subject: National minorities
  topic: keywords
creator: Cristina Rodríguez-Reche
creator: Zenia Hellgren
creator: Lorenzo Gabrielli
creator: Dan Rodríguez-García
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Migraciones. Publicación del Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones
date: 2025-10-13
publication date: 2025-10-13
doi: 10.14422/mig.y2025.i64

Humanitarianism and Asylum: The Ambiguous Governance of International Protection in Madrid from the Perspective of Institutional Actors
type: item
description: The increase in the arrival of forcibly displaced people in the European Union has intensified the integration of security-oriented migration policies with humanitarian assistance policies, leading to the emergence of humanitarian borders. Research in this area has focused on external humanitarian borders, and much less on internal ones. The main analytical contribution of this article is the identification and conceptualisation of the ethnographic category of the “non-applicant” situated within the political and social context of an internal humanitarian border, as a tool for revealing the mechanisms of the ambiguous governance of international protection. To this end, I have drawn on an ethnographic study conducted in the city of Madrid between 2022 and 2024, based on 22 in-depth interviews, primarily with institutional actors (20 interviews with humanitarian workers from NGOs within the reception system and 2 with officials from the State Public Administration).
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: anthropology
  topic: keywords
subject: refuge
  topic: keywords
subject: humanitarianism
  topic: keywords
subject: reception
  topic: keywords
creator: Almudena Cortés Maisonave
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-05-29
publication date: 2026-05-29
starting page: 1
ending page: 19
doi: 10.14422/mig.23618.019

Deconstructing Existing Narratives: A Critical Reassessment of Climate-Driven Migration Dynamics in Africa and Namibia
type: item
description: This paper critically examines dominant narratives of climate and environmental migration in Africa, focusing on Namibia. It highlights the limitations of international definitions, which often frame mobility through crisis and displacement, obscuring local agency and adaptive practices. Drawing on mixed-methods fieldwork (2017-2023) in northern and central Namibia, through interviews, observations, and policy analysis, the study reveals that migration is shaped by the intersection of environmental stressors with socio-economic inequality, gender dynamics, and cultural traditions. In Namibia, seasonal and adaptive mobility patterns challenge deterministic crisis models, instead reflecting community resilience and strategic planning. Literature and policy reviews further show that rigid terms like climate refugee risk oversimplifyng complex drivers of movement. The study calls for a reframing of climate migration as a context-specific, adaptive strategy, and urges inclusive policies that integrate local knowledge and address underlying structural vulnerabilities. Migration should be seen as part of resilience-building, not just emergency response.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: climate migration
  topic: keywords
subject: environmental mobility
  topic: keywords
subject: Namibia
  topic: keywords
subject: agency
  topic: keywords
subject: resilience
  topic: keywords
creator: Bruno Venditto
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-18
publication date: 2025-12-18
starting page: 1
ending page: 27
doi: 10.14422/mig.22986.028

For a Latin American Political Ecology of Climate (Im)mobilities
type: item
description: Research on the climate change-human mobility nexus remains largely dominated by agendas shaped by the Global North, leading to power inequalities in practices, policies, and knowledge. Critical scholarship has identified political ecology as a valuable framework for addressing these problems. In this paper, we argue that Latin American Political Ecology (LAPE) provides unique insights for addressing this challenge. Drawing on four case studies from the Andes and the Amazon, we explore how LAPE can inform a research agenda on climate (im)mobilities. We identify three areas in which this convergence could be particularly fruitful: the implications of climate (im)mobilities for food sovereignty; the more-than-human character of the communities affected by climate-related hazards; and the role of extractivism in shaping climate (im)mobility in rural areas. We also highlight the prevalence of coloniality of knowledge in climate (im)mobilities governance, reflecting on the positionality of the climate (im)mobilities researchers.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: climate (im)mobilities
  topic: keywords
subject: Latin American political ecology
  topic: keywords
subject: extractivism
  topic: keywords
subject: coloniality
  topic: keywords
subject: indigenous and peasant communities
  topic: keywords
creator: Jorge Enrique Forero
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-01-19
publication date: 2026-01-19
starting page: 1
ending page: 22
doi: 10.14422/mig.23528.033

Manufacturing Crisis, Governing Instability: The Political Ecology of Migration, Power, and Ecocide
type: item
description: Human mobility is not an anomaly but a historical constant that has been systematically governed, stratified and racialised. This article reconceptualises the “migration crisis” not as an exceptional event but as a political-ecological crisis regime that manufactures crisis, organises instability and legitimises violence at and beyond borders. Bringing together political ecology, world-ecology, governmentality and debates on racial capitalism, it develops a framework for analysing how war, extractivism, ecocide and climate apartheid produce unliveable environments and stratified regimes of (im)mobility. The argument is operationalised through paradigmatic cases from the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Niger Delta, Gaza, the Kafue basin and architectures of climate apartheid, showing how legal, economic and humanitarian infrastructures manufacture dispossession, immobilisation and selective mobility. By treating crisis as a durable regime rather than an episode, the article links border spectacles to slower forms of environmental and colonial violence and clarifies how migrants’ lives are governed as a managed instability.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: political ecology of migration
  topic: keywords
subject: crisis regime
  topic: keywords
subject: racial capitalism
  topic: keywords
subject: governmentality
  topic: keywords
subject: climate apartheid
  topic: keywords
subject: ecocide
  topic: keywords
subject: (im)mobility
  topic: keywords
creator: Zakaria Sajir
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-02-23
publication date: 2026-02-23
starting page: 1
ending page: 22
doi: 10.14422/mig.23582.004

From Adaptive Resilience to the Production of the Common. An Analytical Framework for Rethinking Immobility in the Context of Climate Crisis
type: item
description: Within risk studies, resilience has become established as a dominant concept linked to adaptation and defined as the capacity to anticipate, absorb, and recover. However, this framework tends to obscure the structural conditions that produce vulnerability, normalizing precariousness through technocratic discourse. This article critically examines how the notion of resilience is employed in climate mobility studies, advancing toward alternative readings that move beyond the dichotomy presenting migration as agency and immobility as a lack of adaptive capacity. The analysis draws on the case of the Pozo de Flores Association in the Upper Valley of Cochabamba, Bolivia—a community water management initiative led by peasant women. The study adopts a qualitative and situated approach, based on in-depth interviews and participatory mapping. Results demonstrate that voluntary immobility can no longer be understood merely as adaptation or community resilience. Rather, it constitutes a conscious political practice of resistance against the capitalist necrotization of life, rooted in collective strategies for territorial defense and the sustenance of life.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: adaptation
  topic: keywords
subject: resilience
  topic: keywords
subject: voluntary immobility
  topic: keywords
subject: resistance
  topic: keywords
subject: production of the common
  topic: keywords
creator: Yolanda Alfaro Aramayo
creator: Mónica Rocha Medina
creator: Huáscar Salazar Lohman
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2026-03-13
publication date: 2026-03-13
starting page: 1
ending page: 07
doi: 10.14422/mig.23561.008

Framing Climate Mobility: A Discourse Analysis of Spanish Newspapers
type: item
description: In a world increasingly affected by climatic changes, climate mobility has become a topic of growing relevance in the geopolitical context. Spain, as an external border of the European Union with historical ties to regions highly exposed to climate impacts, such as North Africa, offers a critical case study for examining these dynamics. This article applies framing theory to qualitatively analyse how Spanish media construct climate mobility and how both people and spaces are represented. Drawing on 52 articles published between 2021 and 2023 in the six most-read newspapers in Spain, four predominant frames are identified: quantitative-alarmism, securitization, humanitarianism, and vulnerability. Media discourses depict migrants as passive victims or abstract figures, while spaces are portrayed as “in crisis” or “under threat.” Only the vulnerability frame provides a more nuanced perspective by linking exposure to climate change with socio-demographic risks. Yet even here, responsibilities of the Global North remain underdeveloped.
subject: Estudios
  topic: section
subject: climate mobility
  topic: keywords
subject: migration
  topic: keywords
subject: climate change
  topic: keywords
subject: framing theory
  topic: keywords
subject: media
  topic: keywords
subject: Spain
  topic: keywords
creator: Carolina Rebollo-Díaz
creator: Pilar Morales-Giner
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-18
publication date: 2025-12-18
starting page: 1
ending page: 26
doi: 10.14422/mig.23558.029