Moroccan immigrants in the Pitiüses Islands
This thesis is based on the migration of the Moroccan citizens into the Pitiüses Islands and it is focused on changes that happen in those people’s lives because of the migration, and also in the changes perceived in the rest of their families in origin. The research insists specially on how the migration affects the status of the person who migrates, as well as the relationship that exists between some factors (such as the degree of acculturation and of integration, the characteristics of the personal net, the success achieved at their destination, etc.) and the way of keeping their ties with Morocco that the members of the studied group maintains, that makes them to be transmigrants.
The hypotheses defended by this thesis show that individuals and families in this study who did not reach a social and ethnically diverse personal network have more difficulties with regard to their social integration, they are the least acculturated and who more problems have in adapting to changing economic situation, etc.
Also argues that the locality, i.e. the features of the municipality of residence at destination, would be one of the most important factors for a good adaptation of immigrants. In reference to this, we should pay attention to the stability that can get the migrated on issues such as housing and the existence of basic services such as a good public transport service. In the same way, locality became the most influential factor, together with the elapsed time in the area of migration and other factors, such as the very traditional ideology of immigrants or the fact of segregation and the intentional ethnic resistance as the more profitable alternative for the development of self-exclusionary tendencies.
As for the young of the study, it has been shown that the degree of acculturation would be related to age of arrival, but also to the degree of integration and acculturation of parents. Something to take into consideration is the relationship between age of arrival of the young people and their interest in studies.
Moreover, the hypothesis also argue that, while the migration project of Moroccan people from the Pitiüses Islands is conceived in the beginning as a family project, as time passes and as the migrated is accommodating to the new location, this project becomes clear individual or moves to involve only the nuclear family.
Moreover, the high frequency of visits of migrants to their homeland, as well as the intention to return home among the subjects of this study from the time of retirement, trying to combine the time between origin and destination, show that Moroccans of this study have become transmigrants and that they continue attached to their homeland, independently to the degree of success they have achieved at destination and to their degree of integration and acculturation.
It has been observed that the status of immigrants tends to improve after the migration, especially when referring to prestige. There is an exception to this: women with an individual migratory project, who generally are seen as suspicious by their compatriots.
Finally, this thesis argues that social control of women of the study arrived into adulthood is more intense in origin than in destination. But we conclude that these women, regardless of acculturation and the degree of integration achieved, in a high percentage develop mechanisms to carry out its objectives.
References
"Moroccan People in Pitiüses Islands: characteristics of their migratory project and changes in their lives from that" is Ivone Puig Artigas docotral thesis, read at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and supervised by Dra. Teresa San Román Espinosa and Dra. Aurora González Echevarría.
