Immigrants´ social insertion and residentiality in urban areas of Sevilla and El Ejido

Abstract

Different forms of residentiality in local contexts have been shaped in the immigrants’ process of social insertion in Andalusia. These forms of residentiality are the result of processes of social interaction, municipal productive specialization, and the socio-cultural dynamics generated during the immigrants’ settlement. From the confluence of these variables, one can find a particular configuration of urban space, which is both cause and effect of processes related to immigrants’ integration in local social contexts. The social construction of urban spaces, conditioned by the multiculturalism linked to immigration and interethnic relationships, acquires an outstanding relevance for social analysis because it is the product of sociability dynamics and collective identification processes which influence on social interaction. The residentiality of immigrant collectives is related to the characteristics of each host society, and plays a significant role in local policies related to urban planning, access to housing, socioeconomic dynamics, and socio-spatial segregation. New neighbours reinterpret the uses and meanings of space, generating processes of socio-spatial ethnization, new standards of sociability, structuring social networks, and urban reterritoralisation. The immigration processes in El Ejido and Seville are taken as case studies in order to demonstrate how the types of habitat and immigrants residentiality in Andalusia are the result of these dynamics