Young emigrant Spanish college students: between nostalgia for the country of origin and attraction for the host country

Introducción: El fuerte deterioro en las condiciones sociales de los jóvenes españoles, agravado a raíz de la crisis económica, ha generado cambios profundos en sus comportamientos sociales, destacando la aparición de un discurso migratorio que afecta principalmente a aquellos que se encuentran más cualificados. Así, las elevadas cifras de desempleo que viene experimentando España en los últimos años, han generado que el país pase de registrar una entrada masiva de inmigrantes extranjeros a convertirse nuevamente en un país generador de emigración, lo mismo que había sido en el transcurso de la mayor parte del siglo XX. El objetivo del presente artículo es aportar conocimiento empírico acerca de cómo los jóvenes universitarios españoles que han emigrado en los últimos años, redefinen sus espacios vitales a lo largo de sus procesos migratorios, y qué factores influyen en esa redefinición.Método: Para tratar de responder a este objetivo de investigación, se han realizado veinte entrevistas en profundidad a jóvenes universitarios españoles que han emigrado al extranjero, con el objeto de producir los relatos de vida sobre sus experiencias migratorias. Para el análisis de la información se ha utilizado la Grounded Theory.Resultados: Mediante la utilización de la Grounded Theory se han tipificado tres categorías discursivas denominadas: nativofobia (enfatización del aquí y ahora), nativofilia (idealización del allí y antes) y adaptación mixta (fluctuación entre diversas lealtades a los nuevos espacios culturales con los que entran en contacto a raíz de su proceso migratorio), que permiten explicar las modificaciones acontecidas en las subjetividades de estos jóvenes, al trascender los espacios de partida y entrar en relación con los nuevos espacios de vida que se encuentran.Conclusión: Se concluye que en el transcurso de sus procesos migratorios los jóvenes reconstruyen constantemente sus percepciones y estrategias de adaptación, debido a la interacción social que se produce en los múltiples contextos propios de dichos procesos. Introduction: The sharp deterioration of young Spaniards' social condition, aggravated by the financial crisis, has provoked deep changes in their social behavior and, especially, the emergence of a migration discourse which affects mostly those with the highest qualifications. Thus, the high unemployment rates that Spain is suffering in the last years have made the country to go from receiving a massive influx of immigrants to, once again, being a focus of emigration, like it was for much of the 20th century. The goal of the present paper is to provide empirical knowledge about how Spanish college students that have emigrated in the last years redefine their vital space preferences throughout the migration process, as well as what elements have an influence in said redefinition.Method: In order to meet the goal of this research, twenty young college students which have emigrated were interviewed in depth, with the aim of elaborating an account of their migration experiences. A method known as 'Grounded Theory' was used for the analysis of the information.Results: Said method has been used to classify the discourses in three categories: nativephilia (an emphasis on the 'here and now'), nativephobia (an idealization of the 'there and before'), and mixed adaptation (a fluctuation between various degrees of loyalty to the new cultural space with which they have made contact due to the migration process). Said categories allow to explain the changes that occurred in these students subjective perception of the world, going beyond their starting places and linking them to the new space in which they are now.Conclusion: We can conclude that young Spaniards are constantly redefining their perception of the world and their adaptation strategies throughout the migration process, due to the social interactions they experience in the variety of contexts typical of said processes.</jats:p

Nostalgic, converted, or cosmopolitan: typology of young Spanish migrants

The high unemployment rate that is affecting Spain in recent years, along with the consolidation of labour market insecurity, have generated great changes in social behaviour, with a prominent tendency for young people to leave the country. With the aim of understanding, from the point of view of these new migrants, how their migration processes and sociocultural integration in their host countries are, this article follows the procedures of the Grounded Theory to analyse the discourses obtained through a discussion group and 41 in-depth interviews with young Spanish migrants while they were living abroad, during the period 2010-2015. The strength of this research lies in its construction of an empirical model consisting of three procedural categories: nostalgic adaptation, converted adaptation and cosmopolitan adaptation. These categories allow us to explain how the perception of young people about their home and host societies changes, as well as how their sociocultural adaptation to the new context is affected by the conducts and behaviours inherent to said perception

The Demands of Niqabi Women in the Telegram Subaltern Corner Orgullo Niqabi

The present article is about Niqabi women belonging to the private Telegram instant messaging channel Orgullo Niqabi (Spanish for ‘Niqabi Pride’). More specifically, our main objective is to explain what they are demanding, how they articulate their demands through that channel, and why they use it for communicating and to organize their actions. Said demands are mainly linked to their recognition as autonomous and political individuals within the different contexts in which they find themselves. First, our analysis will focus on categorizing their social and political demands for being recognized, not only as Muslims, but also as autonomous, independent, and political beings. Second, we intend to explain how those demands, expressed in the virtual world, are articulated in specific actions in the different societies and social contexts in which these women live. To this end, this article analyzes, following the procedures of the Grounded Theory, the discourses obtained through 27 in depth interviews conducted in the first half of the year 2019. The strength of this research lies in overcoming the difficult access to these women and their discourses as well as in clarifying who they are, what they are demanding from the societies in which they live, how and why they are virtually grouped and the consequences of their virtual grouping in the different societies in which each of them lives

Jóvenes españoles migrantes en Chile: entre el crecimiento profesional y la ausencia de bienestar social

The present paper, based on a research carried out in Chile between March and June 2016, on the one hand studies the sociodemographic characteristics and the profiles of those Spanish citizens who obtained their resident visa during the period 2010 2015 and, on the other hand, tries to understand the migration processes and the sociocultural insertion of those migrants. The first goal is achieved by analyzing the statistics provided by the Chilean Department of alien status and migration. The second one has been carried out following the procedures of the Grounded Theory to analyze the discourses obtained through a discussion group and eleven in depth interviews with Spanish residents in Chile. The age of the participants was between 25 and 35 years, they had an university degree, and arrived in the country between 2010 and 2015. Through these analyses, the research shows how Spanish migration is composed mainly of young people qualified in technical professions like engineering, architecture or geology. Likewise, the way in which these migrants –self styled ‘labor exiles’– seem to follow a socio cultural insertion in Chilean society that we could define as nostalgic and which is characterized, mainly, by the idealization of the context of departure and return, becomes evident.El presente trabajo, fundamentado en una investigación realizada en Chile entre los meses de marzo y junio de 2016, por un lado, y mediante las estadísticas proporcionadas por el Departamento de Extranjería y Migración, estudia las características sociodemográficas y los perfiles de aquellos ciudadanos españoles, que obtuvieron la visa de residencia durante el periodo 2010-2015. Y por otro lado, con la intención de comprender cómo son los procesos migratorios y la inserción sociocultural de estos migrantes, analiza, siguiendo los procedimientos de la Grounded Theory, los discursos obtenidos a través de once entrevistas en profundidad y un grupo de discusión, realizados a españoles residentes en Chile, con una edad comprendida entre los 25 y 35 años, con titulación universitaria, y que llegaron al país entre 2010 y 2015. A través de dichos análisis, se muestra cómo esta emigración española se compone principalmente por jóvenes cualificados en profesiones técnicas como la ingeniería, la arquitectura o la geología. E igualmente, se pone de manifiesto la manera en que estos migrantes autodenominados “exiliados laborales”, parecen seguir una inserción sociocultural en la sociedad chilena, que podríamos definir como nostálgica y que se caracteriza, principalmente, por la idealización del contexto de partida y del retorno

Our Life Is Not Here: Migration and Return of Young Spaniards Living in Chile

With the aim of understanding the recent migration processes of young Spaniards settled in Chile, the present paper analyzes, on the one hand, how these young people experience their arrival and establishment in said Latin American country and, in the other hand, how the process of returning and readjusting to Spanish society takes place. For that, and following the procedures of the Grounded Theory, the discourses of 37 Spanish migrants obtained through in depth interviews were analyzed: 22 of them are living in Chile and the other 15 returned to Spain after spending a long period in Chilean society and have been living in Spain for at least one year since then. All of them have university degrees, are between 25 and 35 years old, and arrived in Chile between 2013 and 2018. This qualitative study shows the way in which these migrants experience their sociocultural integration in Chilean society, which could be typified as “nostalgic” since it is characterized by the idealization of and the longing for their society of origin. Another key characteristic is the eventual return to the country of origin, in which the desynchronization they experience is especially remarkable: after a long period abroad, they feel disconnected from the transformations that have taken place in their original environment, which leads them to experience a difficult process of readjustment to Spanish society that sometimes is even more complex than that experienced abroad

Islam Is Not Bad, Muslims Are: I’m Done with Islam

The present paper addresses the motives that make some inhabitants of the Spanish province of Granada that converted to Islam leave it after some time. We have approached this reality using grounded theory and conducting nineteen in-depth interviews. Two of the main conclusions are that all interviewees were under great pressure due to the expectations that Muslims they interacted with—partners, family, people from Muslim associations or internet groups, etc.—had of them, and that said expectations were based on interpretations of a fundamentalist nature. Additionally, the fact that these people left Islam makes it evident that their existence is grounded in a ‘self’ under constant construction and open to the possibility of starting to be, continuing to be, or changing depending on their personal choice

Jóvenes españoles migrantes en Chile: entre el crecimiento profesional y la ausencia de bienestar social

The present paper, based on a research carried out in Chile between March and June 2016, on the one hand studies the sociodemographic characteristics and the profiles of those Spanish citizens who obtained their resident visa during the period 2010 2015 and, on the other hand, tries to understand the migration processes and the sociocultural insertion of those migrants. The first goal is achieved by analyzing the statistics provided by the Chilean Department of alien status and migration. The second one has been carried out following the procedures of the Grounded Theory to analyze the discourses obtained through a discussion group and eleven in depth interviews with Spanish residents in Chile. The age of the participants was between 25 and 35 years, they had an university degree, and arrived in the country between 2010 and 2015. Through these analyses, the research shows how Spanish migration is composed mainly of young people qualified in technical professions like engineering, architecture or geology. Likewise, the way in which these migrants –self styled ‘labor exiles’– seem to follow a socio cultural insertion in Chilean society that we could define as nostalgic and which is characterized, mainly, by the idealization of the context of departure and return, becomes evident.El presente trabajo, fundamentado en una investigación realizada en Chile entre los meses de marzo y junio de 2016, por un lado, y mediante las estadísticas proporcionadas por el Departamento de Extranjería y Migración, estudia las características sociodemográficas y los perfiles de aquellos ciudadanos españoles, que obtuvieron la visa de residencia durante el periodo 2010-2015. Y por otro lado, con la intención de comprender cómo son los procesos migratorios y la inserción sociocultural de estos migrantes, analiza, siguiendo los procedimientos de la Grounded Theory, los discursos obtenidos a través de once entrevistas en profundidad y un grupo de discusión, realizados a españoles residentes en Chile, con una edad comprendida entre los 25 y 35 años, con titulación universitaria, y que llegaron al país entre 2010 y 2015. A través de dichos análisis, se muestra cómo esta emigración española se compone principalmente por jóvenes cualificados en profesiones técnicas como la ingeniería, la arquitectura o la geología. E igualmente, se pone de manifiesto la manera en que estos migrantes autodenominados “exiliados laborales”, parecen seguir una inserción sociocultural en la sociedad chilena, que podríamos definir como nostálgica y que se caracteriza, principalmente, por la idealización del contexto de partida y del retorno

La emigración de jóvenes universitarios españoles en el actual contexto de crisis: Procesos y factores migratorios

La crisis financiera global, y su manifestación concreta en el contexto español, han generado considerables cambios en los comportamientos sociales, destacando la aparición de una tendencia hacia el abandono del país por parte de la población joven (principalmente aquellos que tienen entre 25 y 35 años de edad y cuentan con titulación universitaria). De esta forma, la profunda crisis económica y las elevadas tasas de desempleo que viene experimentando España en los últimos años, han generado que además de constituir un territorio que registra una importante entrada de población inmigrante, se convierta igualmente en un país de emigración tal y como lo fue durante una gran parte del siglo XX. Como consecuencia, el saldo migratorio español, tras más de dos décadas siendo positivo, volvió a tornarse negativo a partir del año 2011. Con el fin de aportar conocimiento sobre esta nueva tendencia migratoria, por un lado, y a través de un análisis de datos secundarios y una profunda investigación bibliográfica, la presente tesis doctoral estudia las características y consecuencias de la actual emigración española. Y por otro, mediante el análisis de una serie de entrevistas en profundidad y un grupo de discusión (siguiendo los procedimientos de la Teoría Fundamentada), describe, analiza e interpreta, cómo los jóvenes universitarios españoles que han emigrado en los últimos años, construyen y reconstruyen sus espacios vitales y sus trayectorias a lo largo de sus procesos migratorios. La fortaleza de esta investigación, radica en la construcción de un modelo empírico constituido por tres categorías procesuales: Adaptación Nostálgica, Adaptación Conversa y Adaptación Cosmopolita; que permiten explicar cómo acontecen las transformaciones en las subjetividades de los jóvenes migrantes a lo largo de sus procesos migratorios, y de qué forma, los comportamientos y conductas inherentes a tales subjetividades, afectan a sus procesos de adaptación en los nuevos entornos a los que acceden durante sus proyectos migratorios.Tesis Univ. Granada. Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Estudios Migratorio

Un estudio comparativo de los procesos de adaptación en jóvenes españoles emigrados al Reino Unido y a Chile durante el período 2010-2014

The article analyzes how those young Spanish people (aged between 25 and 35) with a university degree, migrated to the United Kingdom and Chile between 2010 and 2014, build their adaptive processes in both countries. These processes are complex and they depend on a range of factors, such as the skills of migrants regarding the language of the arrival country, their habituation to the climate of such country, the social position they acquire after migration, their interaction with the local population, the images they construct about their society of origin, and the level of integration in the new social spaces they access, etc.. Depending on all these factors, multiple possible adaptation paths of migrants can be configured. These paths are systematized here by means of a three-dimensional analytical model that distinguishes among nostalgic, converse and cosmopolitan ways of adaptation. Such model is used to examine how university skilled migrants construct, deconstruct and reconstruct their adaptive strategies in the UK and Chile, two different socio-economic and cultural contexts. Firstly, in the UK, the adaptive processes reveal a more versatile character, showing adaptation paths of young Spanish immigrants that are classified, respectively, as nostalgic, converse and cosmopolitan. However, those young Spanish people settled in Chile manifest greatly affected by the high degree of privatization of problems and public services existing in this country, in which it is broadly assumed that the costs of such problems and services have to be individually paid. This causes that these young migrants, faced to this very difficult situation that is so hard to understand and accept by them, develop adaptation processes mainly characterized by the nostalgia for their origin society and the idealization of the return. El artículo analiza como los jóvenes españoles (entre los 25 y los 35 años) con titulación universitaria, emigrados al Reino Unido y a Chile entre 2010 y 2014, construyen sus procesos adaptativos en ambas sociedades. Estos procesos son complejos y dependen de diversos factores, tales como el nivel de conocimiento de la lengua del país de llegada, la habituación al clima de ese país, la posición social adquirida tras la migración, la interacción con la población autóctona, las imágenes construidas sobre la sociedad de partida, y su grado de integración en los nuevos espacios sociales a los que acceden, etc.. Dependiendo de todos estos factores pueden configurarse múltiples trayectorias posibles de adaptación de los migrantes, para cuya sistematización e investigación se propone un modelo explicativo tridimensional que distingue entre la adaptación nostálgica, la conversa y la cosmopolita. Dicho modelo es utilizado para analizar cómo los migrantes cualificados construyen, deconstruyen y reconstruyen sus estrategias adaptativas en dos contextos socioeconómicos y culturales tan distintos como son los del Reino Unido y Chile. En primer lugar, en el caso del Reino Unido, los procesos adaptativos muestran un carácter más versátil, observándose trayectorias de adaptación de los jóvenes inmigrantes españoles clasificables, respectivamente, como nostálgicas, conversas y cosmopolitas. Sin embargo, los jóvenes españoles asentados en Chile se manifiestan muy afectados por el alto grado de privatización de los problemas y los servicios públicos existente en ese país, cuyos costes se considera han de asumirse individualmente. Ello hace que estos jóvenes migrantes, ante esta situación tan difícil de entender y aceptar para ellos, desarrollen principalmente procesos de adaptación caracterizados por la nostalgia de su sociedad de origen y la idealización del retorno.The article analyzes how those young Spanish people (aged between 25 and 35) with a university degree, migrated to the United Kingdom and Chile between 2010 and 2014, build their adaptive processes in both countries. These processes are complex and they depend on a range of factors, such as the skills of migrants regarding the language of the arrival country, their habituation to the climate of such country, the social position they acquire after migration, their interaction with the local population, the images they construct about their society of origin, and the level of integration in the new social spaces they access, etc.. Depending on all these factors, multiple possible adaptation paths of migrants can be configured. These paths are systematized here by means of a three-dimensional analytical model that distinguishes among nostalgic, converse and cosmopolitan ways of adaptation. Such model is used to examine how university skilled migrants construct, deconstruct and reconstruct their adaptive strategies in the UK and Chile, two different socio-economic and cultural contexts. Firstly, in the UK, the adaptive processes reveal a more versatile character, showing adaptation paths of young Spanish immigrants that are classified, respectively, as nostalgic, converse and cosmopolitan. However, those young Spanish people settled in Chile manifest greatly affected by the high degree of privatization of problems and public services existing in this country, in which it is broadly assumed that the costs of such problems and services have to be individually paid. This causes that these young migrants, faced to this very difficult situation that is so hard to understand and accept by them, develop adaptation processes mainly characterized by the nostalgia for their origin society and the idealization of the return