LABOUR AND SOCIAL INSERTION OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AGRO-EXPORTING AREAS. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LOCAL CONTEXTS

Abstract

The social insertion of the immigrant workers in the Mediterranean agro-exporting areas is a process that combines global, "macro" and structural tendencies, and local "micro" factors. This particular combination, modulated by the actors of precise social contexts, shapes the social insertion of the immigrants working in agriculture in Almería, Murcia and Valencia. This paper starts from some aspects of these three Spanish Mediterranean realities. In all three, the "macro", structural and institutional operating factors are the same. Nevertheless, important differences can be found on the processes of social insertion of the immigrants working in agriculture between Almería, Murcia and Valencia. These differences may not be correctly explained or understood without referring to the dissimilar "local contexts ", which are brought up by the mutual conditioning and interdependence between the structure of the local economy, the labour markets, the strategies followed by the several economical and social agents, and the behaviour of the local authorities and administrations. Thus, different social dynamics are generated, which consolidate distinct practices such as segregation or social -residential communities, together with a specific "social climate" on immigration. Along this connecting thread, we analyse sorne aspects of the labour and residential insertion of the immigrants within intensive agriculture, as well as the social consequences of this kind of insertion.