Immigrants in Lisbon: routes of integration

Abstract

The origins of this research lie in a report on the integration policies aimed at the immigrant population of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, written within the scope of an international research project co-ordinated by Harlan Koff and hosted by the Ethnobarometer Program1: Migrant Integration in Selected European Cities: a Comparative Evaluation of City-based Integration Measures2 (Koff, 2002). The work now undertaken further investigates the issues analysed in that report and is part of the Project “Reinventing Portuguese Metropolises: migrants and urban governance” of the Centro de Estudos Geográficos of the University of Lisbon, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (POCTI 38599/GEO/2001). It was not until recently that Portugal became a destination area for international migrations and, thus, the percentage of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the resident population of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area is lower than is the case in other capital regions of Central and Northern Europe. However, over the past 25 years, just like in other Southern European metropolises, there has been a significant growth in the number of foreign citizens, which has taken place alongside the ethnic and cultural diversification of those living in the Lisbon region. At the same time, the Lisbon Metropolitan Area has also undergone a process of social and spatial restructuring, with the reinforcement of the spatial segregation mechanisms based on ethnicity. Moreover, the development of ethnic enterpreneurship and the cultural and social practises specific to certain immigrant groups has led to the intensification of the original forms of appropriation of Lisbon’s urban space, the Martim Moniz area providing a paradigmatic example [...]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio