Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on analyzing life histories of people involved in associations shaped in transnational contexts. The purpose is to identify the experience of groups who are facing situations of social exclusion and stigma in different places, by local practices in public spaces of Madrid City.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I analyze life experiences of transmigrants of Bolivian origin living in Spain, who have shaped associations to solve some problems they face as individuals without whole citizenship. The area, in which their actions take place claiming citizenship rights through the use of public spaces, is collective. Thereupon, from my point of view is central focuses the construction of the collective experience in a transnational field, as well as its transmission. Ethnicity in this context, plays an ambiguous role, as a space to collective response to a few of social exclusion factors; as a social stigma and hence, an "imaginary" border; and finally as a factor that builds subjectivities.

The public sphere is a central concept to this discussion, because the practices that I analyze, take place above all in parks, generating sometimes conflicts between different social groups. Case of Bolivian transmigrants lets see appropriation's practices of the urban landscape, from interstitial spaces, building a cultural citizenship in response to the exclusion and marginalization.