Spanish Emigration Research Articles

“Un país para volver”: análisis narrativo del Plan de retorno a España

A growing number of governments are introducing initiatives explicitly aimed at stimulating the returnof their emigrants. In Spain, the state launched its first policy for return, the “Plan of Return to Spain”, in 2019. Taking this plan as a case study, the article examines the Spanish policy for return and places it in a broader context, both political and historical, in order to understand the limits and biases of this measure in the face of the diverse profiles of Spanish emigrants. Adopting the narrative policy framework as a theoretical-analytical perspective and content analysis as a methodological tool, the authors of this paper identify that, through the new narrative strategy, a paradigmatic change has been produced in Spain in the way of understanding, from the public sphere, the return of Spanish citizens living abroad.Instead of an assistance-based approach, a neoliberal (instrumental and utilitarian) perspective has been adopted, maintaining, however, a conception of “the return to the country of origin” that is closerto the predominant migratory theories of the 20th century rather than to contemporary social-scientific notions. A tension between the policy narratives of Spain and the European Union in relation to Intra-European mobility, and a gap between the state view and the current migratory realities concerning return in contexts of great economic and labor uncertainty, have also been recognized.

The Naval Rearmament Movement in Times of the Liberal Union: Public Opinion, Strategic Culture and Navalism in Spain (1858–1863)

Between 1858 and 1863, a naval rearmament movement developed in Spain that coordinated the efforts of the commercial bourgeoisie, the parliamentary and intellectual elites of liberalism, a sector of the officers of the Navy, the municipalities, the communities of Spanish emigrants in the Americas and the press. The article analyses how these actors favoured the growth of the Real Armada, defending its use as an instrument of Spanish power around the globe. For this reason, certain organic intellectuals devoted themselves to systematising these demands, defining major strategic schemes that influenced the policies adopted by the Ministries of the Navy.

Evacuation and Repression: The Spaniards' Life in Kazakhstan

When the war erupted between the USSR and Germany, the emigrants who were in the European part of the USSR were evacuated to the eastern republics, including Kazakhstan along with some children from children’s homes. The Spaniards repressed by the Soviet government and the soldiers-prisoners of the “Blue Division” were kept in the Kazakh camps. This paper examines the Spanish emigrants’ life and activities in Kazakhstan, their resettlement from Kazakhstan to the Crimea, and the problem of Spanish emigrants’ conscription in the Soviet Army. Also, the fate of repressed Spaniards who were sent to correctional labor camps in the Karaganda region has been traced.

Prospects for the return of Spanish scientists in the United Kingdom during the Great Recession

The economic crisis that began in 2008 caused an increase in skilled Spanish emigration, including scientists, many of whom settled in the United Kingdom. The objective of this article is to analyse the perspectives of a group of Spanish scientists regarding remaining in the United Kingdom or returning to Spain during the economic crisis in order to better understand this dilemma faced by this type of highly-qualified migrant. A qualitative method strategy was employed through semi-structured in-depth interviews carried out with 20 researchers. The results of the study show that, although the idea and desire to return was a recurring theme brought up by the researchers interviewed, the majority of them lean towards remaining in the United Kingdom. Professional and family/personal factors emerged when the interviewees discuss whether to return or remain. However, the study revealed that the professional aspect is a central factor in the issue of return.

La inmigración portuguesa en las cuencas mineras de León

The immigration from the North-East of Portugal to the mining areas in León and Asturias starts in the early 60s. This movement will make up for the Spanish emigration to other industrial regions, looking for working improvemt.The peculiar characteristic of the Portuguese immigration is its secrecy because of tow main reasons: first of all, it was the Salazar Government who obstruct the emigration of young men before having served in the army. Later on, the Spanish authorities put obstacles to these immigrants.Nowadays, this group is still very important because of its large number and its social and economic implication in the province of León.At the same time, their situation has changed as they have achieved greater consideration from the oficial organisms of the Spanish and Portuguese governments.

Spaniards in the wider world: the role of education in the choice of destination country

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between the education level of Spanish emigrants and their destination country. Since Spanish emigrants were born under the same laws and institutions, the differences in their destination countries can be due to dissimilarities in their level of education. To explore this, we use census microdata, covering the period from 2000 to 2007, of 21 countries with Spanish emigrants. Results suggest that with low unemployment rates, English- and Spanish-speaking countries are the most likely to become the host countries for more educated individuals, regardless of their location.

Memory and migrant solidarity in Icíar Bollaín’s En tierra extraña

ABSTRACT Icíar Bollaín’s 2014 documentary, En tierra extraña, represents the experiences of Spaniards who have emigrated to Scotland in the wake of the financial crisis. Following the onset of the crisis in 2008, unemployment rates in Spain reached unprecedented heights, and since then increasing numbers of Spaniards have elected to search for employment opportunities abroad. By relating their experiences, En tierra extraña suggests that this contemporary wave of emigration is the result of Spain’s failure to establish a democracy free from the legacy of the Franco dictatorship. The film puts the experience of twenty-first-century Spanish migrants in dialogue with the history of Spanish emigration of the 1960s under the Franco dictatorship and more recent immigration to Spain beginning in the 1980s. This article focuses on the film’s use of memory and makes two arguments. First, that the film strives to engage the audience in its political project by drawing an empathic comparison between current Spanish emigration and that which occurred during the 1960s. And second, that the film’s less explicit aim of encouraging empathy for contemporary African and Latin American migrants in Spain by comparing them to Spanish emigrants overlooks the ways in which the former group’s experiences are conditioned by questions of race and legal status.

Dolor de dictadura, anhelo de república. El caso del emigrante J. D. Infante y "El Republicano"

Durante los años inmediatamente previos a la Segunda República española emigrantes españoles como J. Daniel Infante propusieron, desde la República Argentina, una serie de criterios políticos a sus correligionarios españoles. La experiencia migratoria de larga duración le permitía conocer los complejos y ambivalentes efectos de las olas democratizadoras en los marcos estatales republicanos forjados por el liberalismo a mediados del siglo XIX. Desde la perspectiva de la historia cultural de la política este artículo aborda el análisis de las indicaciones y sugerencias, liberales y republicanas, democráticas y contenidas tanto en lo relativo a la participación de las multitudes como a la naturaleza de la agenda de reformas, que Infante propuso a sus correligionarios.

Continuities in intra-European mobilities: what’s novel in the new Spanish emigration?

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to study the patterns of mobility from Spain to other European countries that have emerged since the economic crisis of 2008. To do this, we have carried out an in-depth analysis of the main statistical sources on migration flows from Spain’s National Statistics Institute. Based on this analysis we have developed a typology of the “new emigrants”, including returnees, re-emigrants and Spanish-born migrants. However, the article shows that these mobilities do not only result from a new phenomenon, since there is a continuity with earlier Spanish migration cycles.

Crossed mobilities: the “recent wave” of Spanish migration to France after the economic crisis

ABSTRACT This article analyses the Spanish migration to France that emerged following the 2008 crisis from the perspective of crossed mobilities [Oso, L., A. Sáiz López, and A. Cortés. 2017. ““Movilidades Cruzadas” en un Contexto de Crisis: Una Propuesta Teórica Para el Estudio de la Movilidad Geográfica y Social, con un Enfoque de Género, Transnacional e Intergeneracional.” Revista Española de Sociología 26 (3): 293–306. doi:10.22325/fes/res.2017.24], focusing on the cross between social class, gender and generation. It considers the connection between this recent “migration wave” and Spanish low-skilled labour migration in the 1960s and 1970s (domestic service, caretaking, cleaning, the building sector). It also analyses high-skilled migration, which stands apart from traditional emigration, revealing the key role social origins play in labour market insertion. Finally, the article considers the crossed mobility between exiled Republicans and the Marea Granate or “Maroon Wave”, who refer to themselves as “economic exiles”. The analysis is based on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Paris with migrants that arrived in the wake of the 2008 crisis and virtual ethnography (Spanish emigration’s principal websites and Facebook portals).

Spanish film in Argentina: the export of ruralist nationalism

The first Francoism created a film policy based on autarky, that is, on strict control of foreign trade for both economic and ideological reasons. It was necessary to control the balance of payments and the ideology of foreign governments. This is how, after the Second World War, Argentina became the main partner of the regime. Above all because the importation of cereals is vital to alleviate hunger. Moreover, to solidify these relationships, a cultural exchange is encouraged in which the cinema plays an important role. Specifically, the purpose of these pages is to study the commercial, artistic, moral, and critical impact of the Spanish rural drama exported by Spain to Argentina in the period from 1944 to 1947. It is intended to show that this cinema served to disseminate the national ruralist ideology among Argentines and, above all, among the colony of Spanish emigrants, many of them from the countryside.

La emigración española a América en la época moderna. Un acercamiento al estado de la cuestión.

La emigración española a América durante el periodo colonial ha sido un fenómeno de gran transcendencia para el discurrir de la historia y las relaciones entre el Viejo y el Nuevo Mundo. Por ello, se ha convirtió en objeto de interés de numerosos investigadores. Este artículo pretende presentar la producción historiográfica realizada en torno a tal cuestión, resaltando cuáles fueron los periodos de mayor auge, las diferentes líneas temáticas abarcadas y la evolución en las metodologías empleadas, así como las fuentes documentales analizadas. Este trabajo se estructura en tres partes: primero referimos las obras que tratan la emigración a la colonia de forma general, posteriormente abordamos aquellas que atienden de forma específica a las mujeres, por considerar la gran transcendencia de estos estudios, y en último lugar, aquellas que conectan la correspondencia privada con las migraciones. Spanish emigration to America during the colonial era has been a very significant episode in history, having implications in the relationships between the Old and the New World. Therefore, it has been of interest for many researchers. This article aims to introduce the historiographical production originated about the topic. It highlights the periods with the highest peak, the different topics involved, and the evolution of both the methods applied and the analysed sources. This work has been structured in three parts. Firstly, we are going to deal with the works referring to emigration to the colony in general terms. Secondly, we are going to review the ones concerning women, given the relevance and implications of these studies.Thirdly, we are going to approach the works which connect private post with migrations.

About the anniversary conference «Pages of the Spanish emigration in the USSR»

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Economic exiles. The new Spanish emigration to Argentina (2008-2015)

The article analyzes the Spanish emigration to Argentina between 2008 and 2015, with the prospect of understanding the demographic profile of the new Spanish emigrants to Argentina, the causes of their migration, the initial problems of migration process, the conditions of their later situation and their expectations of the future. We use a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodological strategy, combining first and second order research. Findings include that these migrants are mostly young and middle-aged workers, highly qualified and with work experience. Pushed from Spain by the economic crisis and attracted to Argentina for its labor opportunities, they have found a migratory and institutional network of support which guarantees a social, labor and economic integration. For the most part, they are satisfied with their migratory experience even though most desire to come back to Spain.

La inmigración española en Argentina y sus dinámicas transnacionales contemporáneas: el caso de los castellanos y leoneses en Buenos Aires

Este trabajo aborda la inmigración española a Argentina de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, décadas después. En el nuevo siglo, encontramos a algunos de aquellos inmigrantes y a sus descendientes trabajando en sus asociaciones y federaciones en la tarea de mantener vivo el recuerdo de su tierra de origen y estableciendo una red densa de contactos con las instituciones en España, en un momento en que la colectividad se ha asimilado a la sociedad argentina. Lejos de resultar paradójico, el caso de los castellanos y leoneses en Buenos Aires muestra cómo el transnacionalismo de determinadas prácticas culturales convive en un escenario de asimilación.

Emigrants in contemporary Spanish press: A socio-cognitive approach

This article reports on an investigation of the lemma emigra* in three mainstream Spanish newspapers from 2011 and 2015. The analysis brings together corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Linguistics to explore the semantic configuration of the lemma and the relationship between lexical meanings and social ideologies. Results show that in contemporary Spain, emigra* cannot simply be defined in terms of an outward population displacement, but has additional attributes derived from a shared socio-cognitive understanding of the lemma. Thus, the semantic prototype of emigra* presents emigrants as victims forced to leave their homeland because of economic reasons. Present-day Spanish emigrants, however, show additional semantic attributes that place them as peripheral members of the lexical category. Results also show that such cognitive configuration of the lemma is closely linked to different social perspectives on Spanish emigration, and provides evidence of the role media discourse has in the creation of shared socio-cognitive meanings.

ʽYou’re not getting rid of usʼ. Performing acts of citizenship in times of emigration

ABSTRACTThis article uses academic literature on acts of citizenship and performative citizenship to investigate the contestation, protest, and resistance actions carried out by the Marea Granate collective in defence of the citizenship rights of Spanish citizens living abroad. Marea Granate (Maroon Wave) is a transnational network of young Spanish emigrants that emerged in 2013 as a result of the recent widespread emigration provoked by the economic crisis and austerity politics in Spain. Based on their shared identity as economic exiles and demanding the right to participate in Spanish political life to change the conditions that led them to emigrate, the members of this organization have been carrying out innovative, creative citizenship acts that are breaking conventions and causing ruptures in the Spanish citizenship regime. These ‘transformative acts of recovering’, the term used to refer to Marea Granate’s demands and struggles for citizenship, have proven to be capable of being a driving force for change and also reveal the fluid and contested nature of citizenship in the contexts of austerity and emigration.

‘The salvational currents of emigration’: Racial theories and social disputes in the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century

This article analyses the changing significance of racial theories in the writings of Spanish emigrants in the late nineteenth century Philippines. Works by Antonio Cañamaque, Pablo Feced (Quioquiap), and Antonio Barrantes show how racialised understandings of colonial society in the Philippines evolved, from an initial dismissal of hybridism and rejection of mestizos to assertions of the innate superiority of the ‘white race’ and advocation of a rigid separation between local communities. These developments are considered in the context of the rising popularity of biological determinism alongside an influx of Spanish emigrants into the Philippines. The Spanish settlers used biological determinism to proclaim their role as the sole purveyors of both ‘progress’ and of a kind of egalitarianism. This article describes these debates and arguments, analyses their inconsistencies, and addresses the Filipino elite's responses to the settlers’ racial theories. These responses are read not simply as part of the development of Filipino nationalism, but as reflective of rivalries within the Spanish colonial community in the Philippines, where the locally born found additional reasons to support anticolonialism.

Estudio de las noticias publicadas en prensa del éxodo de enfermeras españolas al Reino Unido

ObjectiveTo analyse the media representation of the exodus of Spanish nurses to the United Kingdom through general information newspapers. MethodsContent analysis, quantitative and qualitative. Documents published in the newspapers ABC, El País, El Mundo and La Razón, about “emigrants,” “nurses” and “migrant health workers,” were located from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2016, with Boolean operators. This selected period corresponds to the beginning of the economic crisis and concludes in the year of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. After applying the descriptors, 9559 texts were obtained. Once the noise of the documents was eliminated, 484 textual units were found. To carry out a more exhaustive analysis, the specific documents on “migrant nurses”, which were 77, were selected and analysed qualitatively. Resultsa) 2013 was the year in which the most stories about emigration in general were published, and also about nurses in particular; b) the ABC newspaper published the most stories about the exodus of nurses to the United Kingdom (31); c) El País published the most texts on Spanish emigration, with a total of 397 documents; d) 98% of the headlines analysed (n = 77) had a negative tone; and e) social discourse had greater relevance than political discourse. ConclusionsThe press promoted the push factor for nurses to migrate to the United Kingdom.

«Economic exiles». The new Spanish emigration to Latin America and the Caribbean (2008-2016)

The article analyzes the Spanish emigration to Latin America between 2008 and 2015, with the prospect to approach a quantitative reality, of understanding the demographic profile of the new Spanish emigrants to Latin America, the causes of their migration, the initial problems of migration process and their expectations of the future. We use a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodological strategy, combining first and second order research. Findings include that these migrants are mostly young and middle-aged workers, highly qualified and with work experience, pushed from Spain by the economic crisis and attracted to Latin America for its labor opportunities. However, the idea of returning to Spain predominates.