Emigrant dreams, immigrant borders : migrants, transnational encounters, and identity in Spain / Raquel Vega-Durán.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vega-Durán, Raquel, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Group identity.

Latin Americans.

Social conditions.

Africans.

Spain--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.

Spain.

Emigration and immigration.

Social aspects.

Immigrants--Spain--Social conditions.

Immigrants.

Africans--Spain--Social conditions.

Latin Americans--Spain--Social conditions.

Group identity--Spain.

Africans--Social conditions.

Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.

Immigrants--Social conditions.

Latin Americans--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

xl, 260 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lewisburg : Bucknell University Press, [2016]

Summary:

Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders: Migrants, Transnational Encounters, and Identity in Spain offers a new approach to the cultural history of contemporary Spain, examining the ways in which Spain's own self-conceptions are changing and multiplying in response to migrants from Latin America and Africa. In the last twenty-five years, Spain has gone from being a country of net emigration to one in which immigrants make up nearly 12 percent of the population. This rapid growth has made migrants increasingly visible in both mass media and in Spanish visual and literary culture. This book examines the origins of media discourses on immigration and takes the analysis of contemporary Spanish culture as its primary framework, while also drawing insights from sociology and history. Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders introduces readers to a wide range of recent films, journals, novels, photography, paintings, and music to reconsider contemporary Spain through its varied encounters with migrants. It follows the stages of the migrant's own journey, beginning outside Spanish territory, continuing across the border (either at the barbed-wire fences of Ceuta and Melilla or the waters of the Atlantic or the Strait of Gibraltar), and then considers what happens to migrants after they arrive and settle in Spain. Each chapter analyzes one of these stages in order to illustrate the complexity of contemporary Spanish identity. This examination of Spanish culture shows how Spain is evolving into a new space of imagination, one that can no longer be defined without the migrant-a space in which there is no unified identity but rather a new self-understanding is being born. Raquel Vega-Durán both places Spain in a larger European context and draws attention to some of the features that, from a comparative perspective, make the Spanish case interesting and often unique. She argues that Spain cannot be understood today outside the Transatlantic and Mediterranean spaces (both real and imaginary) where Spaniards and migrants meet. Emigrant Dreams, Immigrant Borders offers a timely study of present-day Spain, and makes an original contribution to the vibrant debates about multiculturalism and nation-formation that are taking place in European studies, where the presence of Spain has frequently been neglected. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : the migrant and the making of Spain

When we were "the other" : emigrant memories and immigration in Spain

Liminal paradoxes at and "in" the border : Ceuta, Melilla, and the Strait of Gibraltar

Stretching the border : Atlantic Ocean, airport customs, and other crossings

The "other" shore in contemporary Spanish cinema

Repopulating "Madre Patria" : transatlantic encounters inside Spain

Spain's integral diversity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Vega-Durán, Raquel, author. Emigrant dreams, immigrant borders

ISBN:

9781611487404

1611487404

OCLC:

951156761