Today I coordinated with Sebastian Rinken the session “The quality of life of migrants, refugees and minorities” in the IX ISQOLS Conference in Florence. There were some presentations on acculturation, social cohesion, and women, among others.
Two papers on female migrants’ marriage and pregnancy were presented. Also nice presentations by David Bartram and Martin Guhn.
These are some of my notes during the session:
- Acculturation continues to be one of the most active areas of research on migration and minorities. The study of acculturation focuses mainly on the efforts and changes experienced by the minority. However, host society has more influence defining the situation of interaction and is also changing (i.e. experiencing acculturation). More research is needed on “the other side of acculturation”.
- Social cohesion has entered the agenda of Anglo-Saxon countries after the Islamists terrorist attacks in USA and UK. There is a debate on (and may be a revision of) the communitarian traditional view. It seems to be a sort of “bad consciousness” in the British debate, where “social integration of immigrants” and “social cohesion” are interpreted by some groups as “racists” or ethnocentric concepts.
- After the “Spanish miracle” of the 1990s, Spain experiences a particularly bad situation in the context of the global crisis. The unemployment –as well as the rate of destruction of employment- is especially high comparing to other European countries. As Spain is also characterized as a new migration country with a high percentage of recent migrants, the social impact of the economic crisis may be particularly important next monts. The crisis is severe for more vulnerable recent immigrants…
Maya Jariego, I., Holgado, D., Santolaya, F. J., Gavilán, A. & Ramos, I. (2010). Comunidades preparadas para la salud. Preparación
comunitaria y práctica profesional de los trabajadores sociales de Atención Primaria en Andalucía. Madrid: Bubok.
