Virginia Paloma

Universidad de Sevilla | US · Social Psychology

Various international organisations have identified the development of programmes that mitigate the negative impact that forced displacement has on refugees’ mental health as a priority intervention area. From this perspective, this study seeks to lend empirical support to a community‐based pilot intervention aimed at promoting posttraumatic growth...

This study aims to analyze the processes of resilience and empowerment experienced by refugees in southern Spain during their participation in a community‐based intervention. Intervention design covered two phases over 15 weeks: (a) accompanying a group of 10 settled refugees to become mentors, making use of a peer‐support‐group format; and (b) hol...

Community participation can be a potential strategy to increase the degree of the subjective wellbeing of immigrants within receiving societies. This study aims to analyze the relationship between immigrants' community participation and their subjective wellbeing, testing the two dimensions of sense of mattering (feeling valued and adding value) an...

The increase in migratory flows worldwide has led to the creation of detention centers as a form of control of irregular migration. Recipient countries are responsible for protecting detainees’ right to mental health, but the literature suggests that immigration detention centers are environments associated with complex mental health needs among th...

Economic migrant women often experience oppressive living and working conditions in the receiving societies. Activism is a liberatory behavior these women may employ to transform such situations. This study explores the activism experience of female migrant domestic workers from Latin America settled in southern Spain, in terms of its psychosocial...

Following a person-centered approach, the present study investigates support for multiculturalism of dominant ethnic members. Using Latent Profile Analysis, the current investigation aimed to identify subgroups of dominant ethnic participants and examine potential difference in their endorsement of multiculturalism towards subaltern ethnic groups....

Los principales resultados que arroja el estudio revelan que el 70% de las personas encuestadas presenta una sintomatología elevada de ansiedad y depresión. Además, dos de cada diez personas admiten haber intentado infligirse daño a sí mismas durante su estancia en el Centro de Internamiento de Extranjeros (CIE). El 70% de las personas comenzaron c...

This chapter discusses a community-based intervention aimed at enhancing the posttraumatic growth (PTG) of refugees in receiving societies. First, we contextualize this contribution by presenting the literature on PTG in forced migration. Specifically, we present the main factors identified in the literature as fueling the emergence of PTG among re...

Immigrants usually live under oppressive settings and experience social suffering because of the unjust socio-cultural conditions of host societies. Community participation can be particularly beneficial for them as it leads to positive outcomes and the ability to resist oppression. In this article we argue that volunteerism—a specific form of comm...

Prior research on psychological empowerment has found that community participation is associated with socio-political control, which takes place when people perceive control in their socio-political contexts. However, the process by which this relationship occurs remains an understudied area for migrants. This study aims to: (a) analyze the differe...

Migrant community-based organizations (MCBOs) are key mediating structures between immigrants and host societies. However, when implementing this role in host societies, MCBOs often face a number of challenges that reduce their chances to be effective in promoting social justice. This paper aims to analyze the challenges that MCBOs settled in Milan...

El trabajo del hogar es un nicho ocupacional opresivo para las mujeres migrantes. Las estrategias que emplean para resistir esta situación han sido poco estudiadas. Este trabajo se interesa por su activismo. Mediante un estudio cualitativo en el sur de España se explora el sentido de dicha acción sociopolítica para las mujeres migrantes. En la prim...

En este documento queremos compartir de manera resumida los resultados de un trabajo de investigación en el que entrevistamos a 11 mujeres integrantes de la Asociación de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores del Hogar de Sevilla (ATHS), y a 8 integrantes de organizaciones que han colaborado con ella. En primer lugar, presentaremos brevemente la perspectiva...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately hard impact on refugees and other migrants who are often exposed to the virus with limited means to protect themselves. We tested the hypothesis that during the COVID-19 pandemic, refugees and other migrants have suffered a negative impact on mental health and have been unjustly discrimi...

Domestic work is a sector characterized by various forms of injustice, prompting some women to embark on a pathway towards activism. Based on the Sociopolitical Development (SPD) framework, this study aims to explore female Latin American migrants' experiences of injustice in the domestic work sector in Spain and how they challenge them, particular...

This study analyzes at a local level (i.e. census tract) the spatial patterns and main contextual factors related to the electoral resurgence of the extreme-right party (VOX) in Southern Spain (Andalusia) in 2018 and 2019. The 2019 electoral data was associated with the percentage of total foreign-born population, degree of territorial concentratio...

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated health inequalities worldwide, having a disproportionately harsh impact on unprivileged populations such as migrants and refugees. These populations are often more exposed to the virus, but less protected, while at the same time being at higher risk of suffering from poor living and working conditi...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a defining global health crisis of our time. While the impact of COVID-19, including its mental health impact, is increasingly being documented, there remain important gaps regarding the specific consequences of the pandemic on particular population groups, including refugees and migrants. This study aims to uncover the imp...

In 2018, in response to increasingly oppressive and widespread federal immigration enforcement actions in the United States (U.S.) and around the globe – including family separation, immigration raids, detention, deportation of people who have lived in the country for much of their lives – the Society for Community Research & Action produced a stat...

Up until the end of 2018, extreme right-wing parties and their anti-immigration discourse, now a common occurrence in other European countries, had not appeared on the Spanish political scene. However, in December of that year, the Spanish extreme right-wing party VOX reversed this trend and made significant electoral gains in the Andalusian region...

Immigrants are often exposed to conditions of economic deprivation or to hardships of a social nature connected to their status. These factors increase their feeling of impotence, thus slowing down the integrative process. An element that could counter these disadvantaged conditions is participation in an association that promotes immigrants’ deman...

Expectations held by economic migrants about improving their post-mobility life satisfaction are not always met. Therefore, there is a need to guide the design of evidence-based policies and interventions to enhance life satisfaction equity between immigrant and host populations in receiving contexts. This study aims to identify the main determinan...

Studies addressing contextual factors associated with anti‐immigrant prejudice have focused on out‐group size and rapid demographic changes in receiving locations. However, the territorial concentration and distribution of ethnic minorities at a local and intraurban level has received little attention. We analyse the relationship between emerging t...

Objective: To describe the challenges, resources and strategies of the staff of the family planning programme of the Polígono Sur Healthcare Centre in Seville (Spain) in their care of Roma women. Method: This is a descriptive study in which in-depth interviews and discussion groups were held with all programme professionals, including a document...

Community engagement of migrants has been identified as an important element in developing both individual well-being and cohesive multicultural receiving communities. Through 10 in-depth interviews, this study explores the profile of Moroccan migrant leaders in community organizations in the receiving context (south of Spain) and the reasons for w...

Teenagers who live in vulnerable neighborhoods have a higher probability of entering into a vicious circle where they suffer the consequences of an unfair structure and, at the same time, contribute to the maintenance of it. A researchintervention with photovoice was carried out with youth from a vulnerable multicultural neighborhood on the outskir...

The decision to migrate is normally based on expectations of improving one's actual living conditions and therefore, one's well-being. However, these expectations are not usually met in receiving contexts that relegate newcomers to lower power positions. From a liberating community psychology approach, this study aims to develop a predictive model...

La scelta migratoria ha normalmente come obiettivo migliorare le proprie condizioni di vita e, quindi, il proprio benessere. Senza dubbio, queste aspettative non sempre sono soddisfatte, soprattutto in contesti di accoglienza che relegano i gruppi appena arrivati in posizioni di inferioritŕ di potere. Partendo dalla psicologia della liberazione, qu...

The incorporation of an immigrant population in the receiving society often takes place in the context of asymmetrical power relationships between immigrants and other groups in society. This often reduces the chances of successfully fulfilling any goals or plans that immigrants may have for their lives in the new country. In this paper we analyze...

Latino immigrant families with children with disabilities experience multiple sources of oppression during their settlement process in the United States. Unfair social structures and dominant cultural values and norms and the way they influence the immigrants' personal life stories generate a cycle of oppression very difficult to break. This paper...

Mobility is a human dimension that has been a part of human behaviour since humanity began. However, the actual exodus of impoverished people to the more opulent zones of the planet represents new challenges that need to be explored with new perspectives and approaches. Liberation psychology can assist in answering these challenges. On one hand, it...

This paper describes an acculturative integration approach that stresses the contribution of liberation psychology. Immigrant integration is a challenge for receiving countries in the Western world due to the frequent asymmetrical and oppressive conditions suffered by newcomers in their new settlements. The cross-cultural perspective connects integ...

This chapter examines the role of community, relational and personal factors in the wellbeing of new settler populations, based on our research and experience with Moroccan new settlers in southern Spain for more than a decade. Taking a liberation psychology approach, wellbeing is conceptualized as a multilevel and value-dependent phenomenon, stron...

This paper describes the role of grassroots associations in the acculturative integration process from an approach that stresses the contributions of community and cultural psychologies. Community psychology allows us to understand the acculturative transition as an empowerment process by which immigrants transform both structural conditions and th...

This study will show how social investigation requires psychopolitical validity in order to guarantee the efficiency of scientific practices, achieving symmetrical relationships between populations and researchers. We describe a guideline to develop a range of concepts ready to be used in health practices with minorities, according to their culture...

Europe is in the process of building a more participative, just, and inclusive European Union. The European Social Fund, which is an initiative developed to actively promote multinational partnerships that address pressing social issues, is a good example of the European transformation. This article describes the steps taken to develop and evaluate...