The Role of Social Transnational Fields in the Emergence, Maintenance and Decay of Ethnic and Demographic Enclaves. MINECO-FEDER (CSO2015-68687-P; 2016-2020).
National R&D Excellence program, 2016-2020
Principal Investigators: Miranda Lubbers & José Luis Molina
Team members: Janine Dahinden (Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland), Marian-Gabriel Hâncean (University of Bucharest, Romania), Marta Lobato (UAB), Isidro Maya Jariego (Universidad de Sevilla), Hugo Valenzuela (UAB), and with the collaboration of Ashton Verdery (PennState, USA), Ted Mouw (UNC Chapel Hill, USA), and Jürgen Lerner (University of Konstanz, Germany).
Abstract
Romanian enclaves in Spain have received little academic attention so far, but are nevertheless of singular importance locally. In this study, we investigate two Romanian enclaves located in Castellón de la Plana and in Roquetas de Mar. In the first case, the enclave has emerged as a response to the demand of workers in the ceramic industry and construcion, and in the second case, in agriculture. We wish to contribute to the knowledge base about demographic enclaves by addressing two gaps in the literature.
First, the functioning of ethnic enclaves has hardly been studied in tandem with the migration dynamics of the involved actors. Nevertheless, our prior research has shown that the phenomenon of the emergence of ethnic enclaves should be conceptualized taking into account the transnational social fields that fuel it and not only the internal dynamics in the enclave and the country of residence. We therefore study enclaves from a transnational perspective, which allows us to see how individuals in the two places coordinate their mobility patterns and care arrangements in order to benefit from the ethnic enclave.
Second, prior research that measured transnational social fields quantitatively tended to focus exclusively on individuals as actors, ignoring organizational entities that may nevertheless greatly affect both migration patterns of individuals and the functioning of the enclave in labour market terms. To fill this gap, we combine an individual and an institutional perspective in a two-level social network model. We believe that this multilevel design is able to give a more complete understanding of ethnic enclaves.
Our ultimate objective, then, is to investigate how circular migration patterns are intertwined with the emergence, maintenance and possible decay of enclaves, and how different individual positions in the transnational field are related to differences in outcomes such as labour market positions and the construction of the sense of community and identification. We propose intensive, multisited fieldwork in the two enclaves in Spain and the community of origin in Romania (in the region of Dâmbovița), combining ethnography and multilevel social network analysis. We will use recently developed, innovative methods of data collection and data analysis to reach our goals.+
Events
(2018) Visita la web de Orbits.
(2017) Participación en la comisión organizadora del hermanamiento entre Targoviste y Castelló de la Plana.
(2017) Visita exploratoria a Roquetas de Mar (Isidro Maya – José Luis Molina)
Miranda J. Lubbers (2016), Investigating dynamics in personal networks. Workshop “Ego-Networks in the Era of Network Science”, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study – Harvard University, November 3-4.
José Luis Molina (2016). Mapping and understanding transnational phenomena through personal networks. Workshop “Ego-Networks in the Era of Network Science”, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study – Harvard University, November 3-4.
Molina, J. L., Martínez-Cháfer, L., Molina-Morales, F. X., & Lubbers, M. (2016). Migrant enclaves and industrial districts: a complex interaction. I Workshop d’Economia Valenciana (ECONVAL). Valencia.
Kick-off Meeting and Open Seminar “Mapping and understanding transnational phenomena”. October 10-11, 2016, Sala de Juntes, Facultat de Lletres, UAB. With the participation of Gabriel Hâncean, Jürgen Lerner, Isidro Maya Jariego and Ashton Verdery.
* José Luis Molina & Miranda J. Lubbers (2016). Migrant enclaves and industrial districts: a complex interaction. [ppsx]
Adriana Suiu & José Luis Molina (2016). La emergencia de un enclave étnico en Barcelona. II Congreso Internacional de Antropología AIBR – “Identidad: puentes, umbrales y muros”, Barcelona, 6-9 de septiembre de 2016.
Miranda J. Lubbers & José Luis Molina (2016). Keynote lecture “Ethnography and multilevel networks in the study of migration and transnationalism” at the Second European Conference for Social Network Analysis, in Paris, June 14-17th, 2016.
José Luis Molina (2016). Conferencia Enclaves étnicos y movilidad de los rumanos en España: una agenda de investigación. Centro de Investigación en Migraciones y ESEIS. Universidad de Huelva. 04/2016. Nota de prensa.