Sònia Parella Rubio

Autonomous University of Barcelona | UAB · Sociology

The city of Barcelona has become a nodal point of the transnational social space of the Pakistani diaspora. Despite being quite invisible, Pakistanis stand out for their entrepreneurial activities, especially in the food and telecommunication sectors. This paper aims to shed light on the transnational dimension of Pakistani ethnic businesses of Bar...

The city of Barcelona, one of the major cultural and economic centres in southern Europe, has a long tradition of migration. This article focuses on two of the quantitatively most important migration phases in the history of the city which occurred in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: the first comprised migrants from other regions of Spain...

Over the last twenty-five years, Spain has experienced a significant increase of Latin American immigrants, which has raised questions about their children’s adaptation process. Yet, there is little evidence on the factors that explain school success or failure among this group. This paper aims to fill this gap by using data from the Longitudinal S...

The ability of societies to increase social cohesion in the presence of large migratory flows depends on their capacity to promote the long-term integration of immigrants through education. While most studies agree that family socioeconomic background is the crucial factor influencing the educational achievement of immigrants’ children, the existin...

Immigration is one of the most contested issues in contemporary political life because of its possible implications for state welfare provisions of receiving countries. There is a fear that rising immigration will erode public support for social policies that benefit immigrants, particularly in contexts of economic crisis. However, some believe tha...

With the passing of Royal Decree-Law 16/2012, Spain's national health system switched from a model defined by universal and free health care principles, to a private insurance system that excluded large population groups. Based on a qualitative research design, this paper examines the media treatment of undocumented immigrants’ prerogatives to publ...

The use of mixed methods to deal with the complexity of remittance motivations is still infrequent. This paper uses statistical and qualitative data and provides evidence on the conceptual framework for understanding remittance behaviour proposed by the scholar Jørgen Carling. Carling’s ‘remittance scripts’ understand remittances as multifaceted tr...

On the basis of data collected by the RETTRANS survey (2011–2012) on Bolivian migrants living in Spain, this article aims to identify the influence of the 2008 economic crisis on the determinants marking the migrants’ return intention. In this regard, there is a need to incorporate the concept of double embeddedness based on migrants’ social networ...

This article highlights how social suffering, conceived of as a manifestation of social oppression and injustice incorporated into the individual , has attributes that are evident in the different stages of the migratory return, which are marked by transnational and multilocal processes. To this end, the VIA Model-composed of the analytical axes of...

The category of space is essential in migration studies and it is implicitly present in the literature about migrant entrepreneurs. However, there is a lack of understanding of how the shifting nature of space as a result of the transnational dynamics of late capitalism's work developments has affected the way migrant economies are framed and appre...

The economic crisis in the Spanish context has played a significant role in explaining the dynamics of return migration in recent years. Based on a qualitative approach, we argue that macro-structural elements in the receiving context operate only as triggers in the decision to return. Instead, factors linked to the micro-meso levels and their inte...

We are faced with a picture of a puzzling world: social life is increasingly transnational, while resources of access to social protection continue, to a large extent, associated to the modern territorial state. This essential inconsistence has contingent contours due to recurrent economic crises, the dispersion of austerity policies and the advanc...

We live in an age marked by a central paradox: social life is increasingly transnational, while the primary access to resources regarding social protection continue, to a large extent, to be linked to the modern nation-state. In response to this, transnational families use international mobility to expand the possibilities of accessing social prote...

In an era where even citizenship is not a guarantee of access to the welfare state, can non-citizens gain access to social protection? Using health care as a lens, and the United States and Spain as cases, we find that non-citizens do have access to social protection via what we call ‘grey zones’, namely points of disagreement between national and...

The term ‘ethnic enclave economy’, defined as a special case of ethnic economy, was formulated more than 25 years ago and since then has been subject to a great debate. Spatially concentrated businesses have for a long time been viewed as particularly anomalous and their economic significance for the society has been overlooked. Yet, recent process...

After a brief account of the findings of the project Longitudinal Study of the Second Generation in Spain (ILSEG), an eight-year-long project which constitutes the first representative study of the outcomes of children of immigrant during their adaptation process in Spain, some reflections concerning the results are shown. Firstly, implications for...

This symposium offers a critical discussion of the logics and dynamics behind the new ‘care circulation’ perspective offered by Loretta Baldassar and Laura Merla in their edited volume entitled “Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care: Understanding Mobility and Absence in Family Life”. The different contributions to this symp...

This volume addresses the topic of circular migration with regard to its multiple dimensions and human, political and civil rights implications from a global perspective. It combines theoretical and empirical studies and presents different case studies illustrating circular migration patterns and policies in different world regions. Circular migrat...

The notion of ethnic economy has been widely discussed in literature on economic activities, migrations and multicultural urban establishments. This paper carries out a systematic analysis of the different theoretical and methodological approaches, in order to provide a context to its evolution and put into question the use of certain terms used in...

This chapter focuses on the effects of the Great Recession on Latin American women using a comparative perspective. It seeks to describe, through an intersectional approach, the situation of immigrant women as workers in the labor market in terms of multiple disadvantages that operate as barriers. First, we describe a general overview about the eff...

Ethnic Economy in Perspective: from its Anchoring to its Fluidity within the Global City. The notion of ethnic economy has been widely discussed in literature on economic activities, migrations and multicultural urban establishments. This paper carries out a systematic analysis of the different theoretical and methodological approaches, in order to...

This paper examines some of the results of the study entitled “RETTRANS, Return from transnationalism” (financed by the Ministry of Education of Spain and conducted by the Group of Study on Immigration and Ethnic Minorities – GEDIME - Autonomous University of Barcelona). Taking into account the increasing political and academic interest in the "vol...

El presente artículo analiza el retorno a partir de la perspectiva transnacional de las migraciones. Con este análisis el texto reflexiona sobre la complejidad que significa pensar el retorno en una época en que las migraciones están fuertemente marcadas por prácticas sociales transnacionales. Además de examinar el retorno desde la perspectiva tran...

This article analyzes the linguistic integration of the second generation of immigrants in Catalonia on the basis of the theory of segmented assimilation. The main objectives are to discover which factors help to determine the preference for the Catalan language (to the detriment of Spanish and the languages of origin) and the acquisition of writte...

La investigación se propone abordar los modos en que se concretan los espacios mercantiles que genera el trabajo de cuidado remunerado y sus efectos sobre los patrones de incorporación laboral de las trabajadoras extranjeras en Cataluña, desde un marco conceptual que aborda la interrelación de la esfera mercantil con las otras agencias proveedoras...

Despite being one of the most used concepts by the scientific community and in political discourses, social cohesion lacks of a rigorous and shared definition. In this article, based on a literature review, three dimensions of social cohesion are defined in relation to cultural diversity, the redistribution of resources and social capital. These di...

This paper focuses on the study of occupational mobility of Brazilian immigrant women in Spain from a gender perspective. The goal of the research is to establish the main characteristics among this group of migrants, as well as consider, through a qualitative approach, the factors (external and internal; structural and personal) that condition the...

El artículo estudia, a través del análisis de las experiencias de los empresarios de origen extracomunitario, las causas que explican por qué algunos inmigrantes optan por el auto‑empleo en el contexto de la sociedad española. El texto vincula esas actividades empresariales tanto a la influencia de las redes sociales de los inmigrantes como a los c...

El presente artículo se aproxima, desde una perspectiva de género, a los factores motivacionales que contribuyen a explicar el autoempleo entre las mujeres inmigrantes residentes en España, muchas de ellas tras desarrollar largas trayectorias laborales como asalariadas, principalmente en el servicio doméstico y en otras actividades que tienen que v...

Los movimientos migratorios procedentes del resto de España constituyen la base del crecimiento de la población catalana hasta la década de los 1970s. En los últimos años se ha iniciado un nuevo flujo migratorio procedente de países no comunitarios que, lejos de estabilizarse, se ha acelerado, diversificado y extendido a todo el territorio. Sin lug...

Conciliation of work and family is a difficult enterprise for almost all women with small children willing to participate in the labour market. Nevertheless, the sort and amount of resources women have to combine paid-work and family care are very unequal and so are as well the possible strategies to conciliate work and family they can develop. The...

Este texto se centra en el análisis de un tipo de vínculos que nos permite aproximarnos a las prácticas de carácter transnacional de los migrantes desde una dimensión familiar y desde la imbricación entre la esfera productiva y reproductiva: los vínculos de gestión del afecto y del cuidado. Se parte del vivir transnacional como foco analítico centr...

Explanatory factors of discourses and strategies in order to conciliate work and family of non-communitary migrant women in Spain Conciliation of work and family is a difficult enterprise for almost all women with small chil- dren willing to participate in the labour market. Nevertheless, the sort and amount of resources women have to combine paid-...

En el presente trabajo pretendemos abordar el alcance y la importancia de la perspectiva transnacional en el estudio de las actuales migraciones internacionales. En concreto, la finalidad del texto es reflexionar sobre el impacto de las remesas monetarias y "sociales" de los migrantes peruanos y ecuatorianos residentes en España, en el seno de los...

Esta ponencia recoge parte de los resultados de una investigación, bajo el título Prácticas transnacionales de cuidado y bienestar familiar: inmigrantes andinos en España;, en la que se analizan los flujos migratorios hacia España procedentes de dos países andinos, Ecuador y Perú, desde una perspectiva transnacional. Este texto pretende explorar el...

En el presente trabajo pretendemos abordar el alcance y la importancia de la perspectiva transnacional en el estudio de las actuales migraciones internacionales. En concreto, la finalidad del texto es reflexionar sobre el impacto de las remesas monetarias y "sociales" de los migrantes peruanos y ecuatorianos residentes en España, en el seno de los...

Los mecanismos de asignación de los puestos de trabajo a mujeres autóctonas e inmigrantes que se siguen en las empresas de servicios a la vida diaria operan principalmente en base a los sistemas de preferencias de los empleadores y de los clientes. Los datos señalan que, a la hora de reclutar a la fuerza de trabajo, los gerentes de las empresas dis...

La progresiva concentración de mujeres inmigrantes en los servicios de proximidad revela un proceso de triple discriminación laboral en la sociedad receptora: clase social, género y etnia. El artículo analiza, por un lado, la posición de la mujer inmigrante en el mercado laboral catalán, lo que permite evidenciar un proceso de transferencia de trab...

El artículo revisa los principales enfoques teóricos en el estudio del desarrollo desde una perspectiva de género, con el fin de analizar cómo ha ido evolucionando el tratamiento que desde ellos se ha dado a las relaciones de género y cuáles son los instrumentos conceptuales que deben utilizarse para abordar en su globalidad el papel que desempeña...

En este artículo se reflexiona sobre el tránsito hacia una dimensión supranacional de la ciudadanía en el contexto de sociedades, como la española, receptora de flujos migratorios procedentes de distintas partes del mundo, así com sobre los obstáculos inherentes a la configuración de una identidad europea en conexión con tal ciudadanía

El artículo presenta un modelo para analizar el impacto de la inmigración teniendo en cuenta los condicionantes materiales y los factores institucionales que inciden, mediatizados por los medios de comunicación de masas, en tres dimensiones: la seguridad ciudadana, la identidad cultural y la competencia por los recursos, de la sociedad receptora. S...

La concentración de las mujeres immigrantes extracomunitarias en los servicios de proximidad hace efectiva la triple discriminación laboral -por razón de clase social, género y etnia- a la que se enfrenta este colectivo en la sociedad receptora. El artículo pretende explicar esta posición en el mercado de trabajo a partir del estudio del "contexto...

L'article parteix de la relació de bidireccionalitat que existeix entre política social i estructura social. El seu objectiu principal és considerar la importància de la política familiar en el procés de configuració de les esferes de l'estructura social i dels eixos de desigualtat. Al mateix temps s'analitza de quina manera la mateixa estructura s...