Convivencia: Urban Space and Migration in a Small Catalan Town [Paperback]

WhileConvivenciais a specific historical term that has come to represent an idea of peaceful co-existence,Convivencia: Urban Space and Migration in a Small Catalan Towncomplicates this simplistic vision. Instead, it shows howconvivenciahas been and is indeed always conflict-ridden by scrutinising the relations between cultural diversity and social conflicts and considering whysomesocial conflicts are said to be inherently cultural. It does this through a multi-scalar extended case study of a small town in Northern Catalonia, Spain. Starting from an ethnography, it sheds light on the multiple local-global processes inherent to the social construction of the migrant problem and its solutions.

The book analyzes the simultaneously local-global transformation of migration and societies, connecting the local processes of space- and place-making in Salt with the more extensive processes of migration, economic crisis and social transformation, and finally, the responses to these changes from the local society, institutions, and NGOs.

This work allows for a deeper understanding of the complex web of urban, social, and political transformation in which migration as a phenomenon takes part. Focusing mainly on the interaction between mobility and settlement and the socio-cultural processes at different scales through the vectors of production and reproduction of space, it advances findings on the new social question in Europe.

In the flood of books on immigration, urban ethnic tension, and gentrification, Convivencia stands out for its multi-scalar design, the elegance of its theory, and the richness of its field data. Lundsteen takes the reader deep inside a small town of Catalonia to show how global forces, national crisis, and local institutions mesh to produce economic dislocation and class polarizationlÓ7