Migraciones. Publicación del Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones
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 (December 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 3 days Acceptance rate of 18.6% 103,092 article views (2024)
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.
Racialisation, Discrimination, and Ethnic Identity among Spanish Gitanos: The Test of Mixedness
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.
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Introduction: Towards a Racial Turn in Spanish Scholarship on Migration and Diversity
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 othering, racialisation and hierarchical categorisation that involve at the same time newcomers (migrants and refugees particularly from the global South) and national minorities. What for some scholars and policy actors is an issue related to the lack of residence permits and recent arrivals from different (and by some framed as culturally irreconcilable) contexts, is in our view part of larger dynamics of systemic racism in Spanish and European societies that affect also minoritised national citizens as the Roma (Hellgren & Gabrielli, 2021). We dare say that through the publication of this special issue, the racial turn in Spanish scholarship on migration and diversity is further consolidated.
Deconstructing Existing Narratives: A Critical Reassessment of Climate-Driven Migration Dynamics in Africa and Namibia
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.
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Framing Climate Mobility: A Discourse Analysis of Spanish Newspapers
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.
Tackling, encouraging or ignoring? The outmigration of transnational domestic care workers on the political agenda in Poland
Although the topic of attracting EU mobile workers to transnational care sectors has received considerable attention, the perspective of sending countries, particularly with regard to policies concerning the departure of care workers, has not yet been analysed empirically or theoretically. This article aims to address this gap by tracing the agenda-setting process regarding the temporary outmigration of workers from Poland to the care sector abroad between 2004 and 2019. Drawing on qualitative empirical material in the form of 60 expert interviews, the article is framed by Kingdon's (1995) multiple streams model. The analysis confirmed that the mobility of Polish workers in the home care sector was not on the political agenda prior to the pandemic. Key stakeholders in addressing this phenomenon as both an opportunity and a challenge, and in proposing administrative solutions, are care agencies that send workers, and associations representing the interests of the care industry in Poland.
Can We Apply Current Theories on Attitudes to Immigration Developed in the Global North to the Latin American Context?
Migration within the Global South is as significant as that to the North, yet most studies on immigration attitudes remain Northern-centered. This limits our understanding of how receiving contexts shape public perceptions. While the Global North receives culturally distinct migrants, Latin America experiences intra-regional flows characterized by cultural similarity, inequality, and limited state capacity. This article tests ethe conditional applicability of realistic competition theories to the Latin American context by analyzing attitudes toward Venezuelan immigrants in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru using OLS regression models based on Latinobarómetro2020 data. Results show that perceptions of fiscal and distributive competition are the strongest predictors of immigration attitudes, followed by perceptions of job competition, whereas individual characteristics have weaker effects. In contexts of inequality and institutional scarcity, competition is understood primarily as a struggle over public resources rather than a cultural threat, underscoring the need to contextualize Northern theories in Global South settings.
Using international surveys to measure political transnationalism: the civic competencies of the Swiss population residing in Latin America
This article quantitatively analyses political transnationalism among Swiss citizens in Latin America through civic competence indicators. Using multivariate techniques (OVERALS and HJ-Biplot), it explores the links between sociodemographic and migratory variables and political behavior. The findings of a sample of 539 valid responses reveal a strong civic predisposition but limited electoral engagement, partially supporting the political exposure theory. We proposed a political transnationalism index as a metric to assess diasporic engagement from Global North expatriates in Southern contexts.
Return to Migrate Again: Reintegration to Uruguay and Re-Emigration of the Uruguayan Population to Spain
This article examines the relationship between the processes of reintegration of migrants in their country of origin and the decision to return to emigrate after their return, taking Spain and Uruguay as contexts of (re)emigration and return respectively. Through 27 multisite semi-structured qualitative interviews with people who experienced return migration from Spain to Uruguay, it concludes that remigrations to Spain after the return migration are associated with a combination of difficulties of economic and social reintegration with a more favorable structural assessment of living conditions in the Iberian country. The analysis shows how citizen insecurity, absent in initial migration, is incorporated as a decisive factor in recent remigrations. It is argued that reintegration processes are dynamic, reversible and mediated by unfavorable return contexts, which questions the effectiveness of current policies.
Transforming Destinations: The Impact of Integration Interventions on the Mobility Decisions of Displaced LGBTIQ+ People in Mexico
This article investigates how displaced LGBTQI+ persons in Mexico make decisions about settling in transit countries and the influence of integration programs delivered by civil society organizations on these decisions. Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico City and Monterrey—including interviews, participant observation, and engagement with local organizations—this study explores how forced migrants navigate their trajectories under conditions of uncertainty, violence, and shifting policy environments. The analysis focuses on three interrelated dimensions: first, the specific vulnerabilities and considerations that shape the migration journeys of LGBTQI+ individuals, including experiences of discrimination, violence, and legal invisibility; second, the role played by civil society organizations in offering services, psychosocial support, and spaces of belonging that often reconfigure migrants’ sense of agency and future planning; and third, the evolving nature of Mexico as a transit country, where rising enforcement measures and limited access to U.S. asylum increasingly lead people to reassess their original migration goals. By centering the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQI+ people on the move, the article challenges linear, destination-focused understandings of migration and contributes to debates on integration, protection, and mobility in contexts of forced countries of destination. It argues that inclusive, person-centered integration efforts have the potential not only to enhance the well-being of marginalized groups, but also to reshape their migration choices in ways that reflect both structural constraints and personal aspirations. The findings underscore the need to rethink border-focused responses and instead prioritize resilience-building strategies rooted in local solidarity networks.
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Imaginary Wor(l)ds: A Creative Methodology to Explore Future Imaginaries of Climate Change-Induced (Im)mobilities
In recent decades, migration and climate change have emerged as two of the most urgent moral and political challenges confronting the twenty-first century. Predominantly portrayed in mainstream media and political discourse within the Global North as exceptional and extraordinary phenomena, the intersection of migration and climate change is increasingly framed through securitization narratives. This article critically examines the social imaginaries surrounding climate change-induced (im)mobilities, with particular attention to the extent to which these narratives are articulated in terms of justice. Empirically, the study draws on a corpus of 78 fictional stories produced by academics, media professionals, and activists, collected via the “Imaginary wor(l)ds” method during participatory seminars. This creative, practice-led methodology invited participants to collaboratively imagine and narrate future scenarios of climate (im)mobilities, aiming to bridge academic research with public engagement and foster new imaginaries through collective storytelling. The approach is grounded in the recognition that creative writing can disrupt dominant knowledge systems and open discursive space for alternative interpretations. The aim was to reflect on whether an effective collaboration between science, media, and activism might generate counter-narratives for climate (im)mobilities. The stories were analyzed using a typology of frames—victims, security threats, adaptive agents, and political subjects—to identify recurring patterns and the extent to which justice-oriented perspectives emerge. By integrating insights from mobility justice and climate justice frameworks, the study opens a path on how creative, participatory methodologies can reframe public and policy discourses on climate migration, foregrounding justice-oriented approaches over securitized paradigms. The article concludes by underscoring the importance of decolonial and intersectional perspectives in shaping future imaginaries and informing equitable policy responses to global climate (im)mobilities.
Rethinking Migrant Masculinities: Pakistani Men in Barcelona
This article presents ongoing findings from a research project on the migration experiences of Pakistani men in Barcelona, focusing on the transformations and continuities in the construction of masculinities. Based on a qualitative approach, the study combines participant observation with 24 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2022 and 2024 with Pakistani men and women from the community. Preliminary results reveal, on the one hand, the persistence of the breadwinner mandate as a central axis of masculine identity; and on the other, the emergence of everyday practices that reflect more flexible and context-specific forms of masculinity. Furthermore, the migratory journey is often narrated as a personal sacrifice that reinforces symbolic validation of manhood. This article contributes to the fields of gender and migration studies by shedding light on the complex identity reconfiguration processes faced by male migrants in transnational contexts shaped by structural inequalities.
Inequalities in Employment by Migratory Origin and Gender: An Analysis of the Spanish Labor Market Based on the 2023 Labor Force Survey
This paper analyzes the impact of migratory origin on situation of immigrants in the Spanish labor market, considering the length of residence. In addition, it explores to what extent the effect of origin is affected by gender. The study uses data for the year 2023 from the Spanish Labor Force Survey. The results obtained by estimating binary logistic regression models show the inequalities marked by these two factors -and their interaction- in different labor dimensions. The probability of not working in some groups is lower than that of natives, but this does not translate into a better position in the labor market. The generalized situation of non-EU immigrants is marked by employment in low-skilled jobs and the prevalence of temporary contracts. In addition, immigrant women are more exposed to unfavorable conditions and this vulnerability varies according to origin.
Dynamics and Neighbourhood Relationships in Local Multicultural Contexts in Spain: A Comparative Reflection
Navigating Dependency: Analyzing Recruitment Practices and Challenges in Malaysia’s Construction Industry
Since the 1980s, Malaysia’s construction industry has faced a critical labor shortage, leading to a heavy reliance on foreign workers and irregular employment practices. This study examines the complex relationship between recruitment policies, industry practices, and regulatory frameworks perpetuating this dependency. Using a mixed-methods approach that includes an extensive literature review and a case study of two construction firms in Peninsular Malaysia (accredited as Grade 3 (G3) and Grade 7 (G7)), the paper identifies key factors contributing to the reliance on low-skilled foreign labor which include high recruitment costs, complicated bureaucratic processes, and exploitative hiring practices. The findings indicate that while current legal frameworks and bilateral agreements aim to uphold fair hiring practices, specific challenges persist within the recruitment landscape, leading to inefficiencies and informal outsourcing practices. This research underscores the urgent need for comprehensive policy reforms and collaborative initiatives to improve labor rights and eliminate exploitative practices.
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Migrant Topology and Savings Strategies in Commodity Cities: A Case Study of the Mining City of Antofagasta
Studies on migration and money have focused on understanding the impact and dynamics of remittances in the places and families of origin. However, there is a gap in the understanding of the monetary strategies of migrants in host contexts. From the intersection of literature on migration, money flows, and topology, this paper asks how the monetary strategies of migrants configure an unequal appropriation of space in mining cities. From a case study of a Chilean extractive territory and the application of in-depth interviews, three types of migrants are identified according to their monetary strategies and relationships with space: migrants categorized as cross-border, expectant, and consolidated. From the monetary strategies of migrants, a pattern of spatial appropriation emerges, a sort of migrant topology that behaves as a Moebious stripe with the mining city in a dynamic of friction, continuity, and inequality.
Digital Practices and Affective Experiences Among Mexican Women Asylum Seekers Trapped in Tijuana, Mexico
This article analyzes the affective dimension of the digital practices of Mexican women asylum seekers trapped in northern Mexico. It is based on the ethnographic method through participant observation in two shelters in the border city of Tijuana and fifteen in-depth interviews. Between January 2023 and January 2024, the U.S. asylum process began with the appointment request to enter the country through a smartphone application (CBP One). This admission system caused temporary disorientation, generating despair and fear among Mexican women. In the context of waiting spaces, this translated into a diminished capacity to act. The practices of connection and disconnection among the women made the wait more bearable and enabled forms of agency.
Assessing the Consistency of the New Migration and Change of Residence Statistics with the Residential Variation Statistics and Migration Statistics
Spanish migration sources are used by national and international researchers and organisations. Thus, their consistency in time-series is crucial. In 2021, the Spanish National Statistics Institute replaced the old migration sources, Residential Variation Statistics (EVR) and Migration Statistics (EM), with the new Migration and Change of Residence Statistics (EMCR), which affected the historical series. In this paper, I analyse the consistency of the EMCR with the EVR and EM in 2021, the only year in which the three sources were published simultaneously. I also produce weighting factors to make the new source consistent with the old ones. The results show that the EMCR is consistent with the ERV for internal migration, with a difference of -0.2%, but not with the EM. The EMCR counts are much higher than those of the EVR and EM for international migration, especially for emigration, 53.8% and 82.7% higher for each source, respectively. Discrepancies between sources increase with spatial scale. These differences are due to methodological changes in counting international migration.
The Policy Making on Venezuelan Migratory Policies in Peru 2017-2022: Processes, Bifurcation Points and Drivers
This study examines Peruvian public policies on Venezuelan migration, identifying factors influencing their formulation and implementation while uncovering their behavioral patterns. Using a qualitative approach based on process tracing and thematic analysis of official documents, media narratives, and statistical data, the research identifies three phases of migration policy: (1) open-door policies, (2) securitization and restriction, and (3) invisibilization and normalization of irregular migration. These phases reveal a disconnect between political rhetoric and practical outcomes, with calculated tolerance for policy non-enforcement and migrant integration delegated to civil society and international organizations. The findings highlight incoherent migration policies marked by legal non-compliance, omission as a strategy, and limited state intervention. These dynamics are driven by advocacy coalitions excluded from decision-making, strained executive-legislative relations, and media-influenced public opinion. The study’s originality lies in its innovative combination of process tracing and thematic analysis to explain policy dynamics in contexts of institutional fragility.
Joan Lacomba Vázquez y M.ª Isolda Perelló Carrascosa (2022). Movilidad y migraciones en el escenario mediterráneo
Yasmine Shamma, Suzan Ilcan, Vicki Squire y Helen Underhill (eds.) (2022). Migration, Culture and Identity
Childhood on the Move: Redefining Children’s Agency Between Resilience and Vulnerability
This introductory article invites readers to reflect on migrant childhood as a space of tension between fragility and resilience, focusing on agency as the central theme of the monographic section, Childhood on the Move: Redefining Children's Agency Between Resilience and Vulnerability. It argues that migrant children are not merely passive recipients of migration processes, but active agents engaged in familial, social, and cultural dynamics across borders. It concludes that, to create more inclusive public policies adapted to the realities of migrant childhood, it is essential to recognize its complexity and multidimensionality.
Racializing the Spanish Borderland. Neocolonial Rule, Patriarchal Lineage and the New Limpieza de Sangre
Melilla is a crucial laboratory of Spanish neocolonial rule. In this paper, we deploy our extensive ethnography in the North African Spanish enclave to argue that analyses of racialization in Spain must (1) be critically situated in the particular genealogies of Hispanic coloniality (as opposed to uncritically incorporating Anglo-Atlantic frames) and (2) foreground their inextricability from the broader formations of global apartheid and imperialism. We zoom in on the phenomena of “mestizaje” in the enclave, examining the neocolonial state intervention in marriage, the gendered and classed racialization of lineage, and the related, irreducibly heterogeneous patterns of belonging and subjection. We then point to the importance of the elimination of the interstice—the suppression of “the Other within”—to the coherence and stability of racial categories and multiculturalist governance. Contemporary racialization in Spain, then, appears as co-constituted by the border regime, patriarchal kinship, and liberal governmentality.
“Neither from here, nor from there”. The Collective Identity of the Second Generation of the Sahrawi Diaspora in the Canary Islands
The aim of this article is to understand how the second generation of Sahrawis in the Canary Islands experiences and defines collective identity (Sahrawi) from diasporic studies. The methodology used has been the Grounded Theory, suitable for little-explored areas of reality, through life stories and narrative interviews with 28 second-generation Saharawis living in the Canary Islands. The analysis shows how the processes of identity construction of these young people develop according to their identifications with the groups of reference and belonging (society of origin, host and fellow nationals in the Canary Islands). All this in relation to the meaning that they attribute to collective identity and the consequences that these meanings have on their lives and social interactions. The study concludes that these young people These young people manifest multiple identities through three identity registers: ethnic, assimilated and hybrid, contributing to redefine and contest the traditional Sahrawi collective identity.
Migrations and Population Turnover in Spain: The Territorial Gap, 2002-2021
Global migrations constitute the main factor of demographic change in post-transitional societies, such as Spain, which has experienced two waves of international migration over the past two decades shaped by the economic cycle. This study analyses these changes at the provincial level and their impact on territorial imbalances, evaluating population renewal and the relative contributions of natural growth and migration. The results highlight the growing role of migrations, particularly international ones, in population turnover. Two distinct patterns emerge: a temporal pattern, marked by an initial phase of record-high inflows and widespread population growth, followed by a deceleration and a second wave characterized by lower migration volumes but a more pronounced demographic impact; and a geographical pattern, defined by three demographic systems: regions dominated by international migration, areas experiencing significant native emigration, and others where aging and mortality are the prevailing demographic dynamics.
Arabic and Islamic Supplementary Schools in the Moroccan Diaspora: Urban Everyday Politics and Inclusion
This article examines the everyday urban politics of the Moroccan-Muslim movement in a Spanish municipality focused on establishing Arabic and Islamic community-based schools within local neighborhoods. Through a combination of multi-sited ethnography, interviews, and focus groups with teachers and former students, we identify three self-organized models of educational provision: private tutoring in homes, teaching in places of worship, and through newly female teachers’ associations. Teachers rent neighborhood spaces and utilize municipal facilities, which helps to overcome the peripheralization of learning in migrant organizations, and the marginalization of home-based teaching. These spaces foster pedagogical and cultural changes to adapt both to the diasporic upbringing context and the expectations of local administration. We analyze: (i) linguistic capitalisation in Arabic language (qualification), (ii) the negotiation of religious and gender identities (subjectivation), and (iii) access to inter- and intragenerational networks of mutual support to address integration challenges (socialization).
The “Conguito”, the “Moro” and the “Gitano”: Multiraciality and the Pervasive Stigmatisation of Racialised Youth in Spain
Maghrebi Muslims, Black Africans, and Spanish Roma people are possibly the most stigmatised, racialised and discriminated against groups in contemporary Spain, a country with a strong legacy of colonialism and a problematic relationship with diversity. Because mixedness is a crucial test for evaluating the persistence of societal ethnoracial divisions, in this article we analyse the narratives of children and youth of Maghrebi Muslim, Black Afro-descendant and Roma mixed ancestry, looking at how their specific mixed heritage shapes their experiences of discrimination and agency. The qualitative information presented here draws on various recent research projects in Spain on intermarriage, multiraciality and multiethnicity. We show that despite the fact that the mixed-ancestry participants were born and socialised in Spain and have one parent who is an ethnic Spaniard, they nonetheless are perceived as foreigners and are subjected to everyday “othering.” That is, their mixedness does not make the stigma of foreignness disappear. The inclusion in our analysis of participants of Roma (Gitano) ancestry, which is the largest national ethnic minority group in Spain, allows us to uncover different aspects of minority/majority dynamics in Spain and to show how patterns of social exclusion encompass racism, Islamophobia and antigypsyism.
Everyday Antigypsyism and Structural Discrimination: How the Normalisation of Racism Shapes Social Exclusion
In this article, we focus on antigypsyism to inquire how structural racism operates and is reproduced through everyday interaction, being normalised both by Roma and non-Roma people. We link the notion of structural racism to another central concept in migration and diversity studies that is often treated separately, namely the contested idea of “integration.” Social exclusion is, in our framework, largely understood as a consequence of structural racism. We apply this conceptual framework to analyse the deeply rooted, normalised racism and discrimination that Gitanos (Spanish Roma) continuously face in Spain, and that we have denominated “everyday antigypsyism.” We use ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017-2024, including 185 in-depth interviews, to explore how rejection and discrimination shape the exclusion of Gitanos from “mainstream society,” impeding their “integration,” and normalising the racialised inequalities between Roma and non-Roma Spanish citizens.
Public Denunciation of Heteropatriarchal Oppressions in Contexts of Racism and Immigration and Their Management by Social Movements: An Intersectional Challenge
In recent years, in Catalonia, several women who are daughters of families Arab countries and Muslim tradition have denounced, mainly through social media, a hetero-patriarchal repression that affects many aspects of their lives. According to these women, this repression is justified by principles attributed to Islam and is exercised by their families and social environment. They also denounce the lack of response to their complaints and the limited support received from social movements. This article aims to incorporate this issue into the academic and social agenda. To this end, we interviewed eight women linked in varying degrees to the collective La Voz de la Infiel which has led efforts to denounce these forms of oppression, or who align themselves with their demands. We reviewed interviews with members of the collective, and we contextualised the activists’ narratives within a theoretical framework. Finally, we examined the difficulties social movements face when trying to address these complex situations. In this article, we analyse the discourses of these women, which highlight the tension between addressing racism and patriarchy in contexts of immigration and in which religion plays an important role. On the other hand, we try to understand the difficulties of social movements in response to these complex situations, characterised by the confluence of different logics.
“The word ‘Machu Picchu’ makes me very uncomfortable”: Racialized Latinidades in Spanish Higher Education Institutions
The paper examines the racialization processes experienced by a group of university students identified as Latin American, Latino, and/or Afro-Latin American in Spain. Through ethnographic work conducted in higher education spaces, the research identifies three coping strategies for dealing with racialization experiences. The first occurs when participants are aware of these processes and the resulting racism, recognizing that it goes beyond phenotype (especially in bureaucratic processes and in relation with gender). The second strategy involves minimizing these racialization processes by labeling them as misunderstandings. The third strategy entails adopting resistance strategies to confront these processes, either by forming ethnoracial and/or religious communities or by actively engaging in anti-racist groups. In the conclusion, the article reflects on the persistence of colonial imaginaries about Latinidad present in the racialization processes experienced, interrelating them with the coping strategies present in the testimonies and connecting them with our concept of situational global racial formation.
The Construction of “Vulnerability” and “Agency” in Unaccompanied Girls and Adolescents: Perception of the Actors Involved in Chile
The article examines the perceptions of authorities, professionals, and activists regarding the experiences of unaccompanied girls and adolescent females in Chile, focusing on how intervening adults construct the concepts of vulnerability and agency. Through a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews, the study highlights that girls and adolescent females face extreme vulnerability in situations such as pregnancy, sexual exploitation, and other forms of aggression. Despite these challenges, strategies of agency are also identified along their journey, often involving travel with adults in relationships marked by unequal power dynamics. The interviews emphasize the urgency of prioritizing care for pregnant adolescents at border crossings, improving intersectoral coordination to provide comprehensive support, and rethinking public policies and programs from a gender perspective.
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