Paper short abstract:

Public discourse in Catalonia tends to swing between a sort of universalism and a form of assimilationism that stigmatizes all forms of ethnic difference. We will focus on how these discourses play out in the actual process of place-making in working-class neighborhoods.

Paper long abstract:

Catalonia does not have a tradition of multicultural policies. However, the awareness of the so-called "crisis of multiculturalism" has played an implicit role in the way that institutions have dealt with the incorporation of migrants during the last two decades. Policy-makers have been generally wary of celebrating or promoting difference among ethnic minorities and public discourse has tended to swing between two general trends: on the one hand, a universalist discourse that promotes incorporation through the acquisition of citizenship rights and "interculturalism". On the other hand, an assimilationist discourse that tends to stigmatize all forms of ethnic difference.

In our presentation, we will focus on how these discourses play out in working-class neighborhoods where there is a coexistence of migrant cohorts from an immense array of backgrounds. Against the backdrop of a growing discourse of rejection and differentiation among many neighbors, some neighborhood associations emphasize commonalities with the aim to promote class identity. These two discourses emerge and clash in contradictory forms through everyday place-making, especially around the notion of "barrio". Belonging to the "barrio" is sometimes understood as part of a historically wide and still on-going urban class struggle, where the new migration is represented as being in continuity with the past. However, a thin line divides this view from a radically different one which sees the "barrio" from a "nativist" perspective in which the old social achievements of the neighborhood residents are considered to be an exclusive property of those who can call themselves "natives".