Immigrants Contesting Ethnic Exclusion: Structures and Practices of Identity

Eugenia Ramírez Goicoechea

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2005, vol. 29, issue 3, 654-669

Abstract: Most of the literature on social exclusion has concentrated exclusively on socio‐economic and political factors as the causes denying people access to social services and civil and political rights. Structures have been seen as established outside and independently of the practice and experience of individual and collective social actors. In this article I intend to show how social actors implement social strategies of inclusion to counteract practices and classifications of social exclusion within different possibilities of success. This I will do taking into account various arenas and landscapes of macro‐structural constraints, which allow but also limit both autonomy and agency. In doing so, I will stress the complexities and variety of social exclusion/inclusion dynamics within contemporary urban societies that are strongly marked by demographic and ethnic changes. These issues will be explored through two different ethnographic cases: second‐generation Spanish migrants to the Basque Country and Polish immigrants to Spain. En majorité, la littérature sur l’exclusion sociale s’est consacrée exclusivement aux facteurs socio‐économiques et politiques comme causes du refus d’accès de populations aux services sociaux ainsi qu’aux droits civils et politiques. On considère que les structures sont établies hors et indépendamment de la pratique et du vécu des acteurs sociaux individuels et collectifs. L’article vise à montrer comment ces acteurs mettent en œuvre des stratégies sociales d’inclusion pour compenser les pratiques et classifications d’exclusion sociale propres aux différentes possibilités de réussite. Cette approche tient compte de plusieurs arènes et paysages de contraintes macro‐structurelles qui permettent, et restreignent parallèlement, autonomie et agence. Dans le même temps, l’article souligne les complexités et la diversité des dynamiques d’exclusion/inclusion sociale au sein des sociétés urbaines contemporaines, fortement marquées par les transformations démographiques et ethniques. Ces aspects sont étudiés à travers deux cas ethnographiques: les migrants espagnols de deuxième génération dans le Pays basque et les immigrants polonais en Espagne.

Date: 2005
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