SURDIM & HAMLETS

Welcome to the webpage of the UAB Research Programme on Rural Immigration.

This website offers contents from the SURDIM (2021-2023) and the HAMLETS (2017-2020) projects

The current project titled “Sustainable Rural Development and International Immigration in the Pyrenees” SURDIM, is a research project funded by the European Commission and mainly carried out from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). This project started in November 2021 and at least will last until late 2023. Its main objective is to study the role that international immigrants may play in the sustainable rural development in the Pyrenees. The research team is mainly composed by Dr Cristóbal Mendoza (MSCA Research Fellow. UAB Department of Geography), Dr Ricard Morén-Alegret (Principal Investigator, PI, UAB Department of Geography and ICTA), Dr Giorgos Kallis (scientific co-supervisor, UAB-ICTA) and Dr William Berthomière (French scientific co-supervisor at CNRS Passages Lab Université de Bordeaux).

How immigrants revitalise rural villages?

Immigrants are helping to keep alive farming villages and other rural settlements that would have otherwise collapsed from depopulation and/or ageing. The mountainous Pyrenees region, which unites France and Spain, is no exception. Immigrants have revitalised some local societies of Pyrenean municipalities with fewer than 2.000 residents. The EU-funded two-year SURDIM project will explore international immigration in the rural setting of the Pyrenees. It will study the immigrant pathways of labour and economic incorporation in the French and Spanish Pyrenean municipalities to identify sustainable economic projects managed or supported by immigrants, and present successful experiences in terms of rural development. Desktop research and interviews with immigrants will be conducted to shed new light on how immigration supports sustainable rural development.

Objectives

International immigration is a relatively scarcely studied phenomenon in rural Europe, even immigrants may prevent depopulation and ageing in rural areas. Filling this gap, the project studies the role of international immigrants in supporting local economies, bringing in new ideas on sustainability and revitalising the social fabric of Pyrenean municipalities with fewer than 2.000 inhabitants in four areas with contrasting economic structures in France and Spain. In line with Horizon 2020, the project helps to identify major economic opportunities for innovative companies and contribute to the Union's competitiveness and employment in rural areas.

The research objectives are: 1) conduct a critical theoretical exercise of international immigration in rural settings; 2) analyse immigrant pathways of labour/economic incorporation in selected French and Spanish Pyrenean municipalities to identify sustainable economic projects managed/supported by immigrants, and present successful experiences in terms of rural development; 3) study settlement processes of immigrants in selected municipalities, analysing challenges for social incorporation in rural communities, and exploring issues on well-being and inter-cultural aspects; 4) continue updating and extending to other parts of Spain and France the existing Geographical Information System (GIS) in order to contribute to policy and societal debates on immigration in rural areas. Objective 1 will be achieved through comprehensive desktop research to collect and analyse scientific and policy literature relevant to locate pertinent concepts and theoretical frameworks. O2 and O3 will be attained through primary qualitative data analysis collected in semi-structured interviews with immigrants and key informants, and complemented with participant observation. Through statistical compilation and fieldwork for O2 and O3, statistical data and photo material at a local level will be incorporated into an open-access GIS (O4). The main fieldwork areas in the SURDIM project are the Girona and Huesca Pyrenees (Spain) as well as the Eastern and High-Central Pyrenees (France).

More information about the SURDIM project could be found at: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101023968

The research project titled “Immigration and sustainable development in small villages”(HAMLETS), was selected in the open call for proposals RecerCaixa2016, promoted by Obra Social 'la Caixa' and the Association of Catalan Public Universities, ACUP. This was a project carried out from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB), with an interdisciplinary team (Department ofGeography, LIGIT, ICTA) directed by Dr Ricard Morén-Alegret. The team members during the last phase of the HAMLETS project were (alphabetical order): William Berthomière, Francesc Boya, Carme Freixa, Eva Gómez, Giorgos Kallis, Ruth McAreavey, Cristóbal Mendoza, Josepha Milazzo, Laia Mojica, Ricard Morén and Francesc Romagosa. Apart from the UAB, this project also had the active participation of the University of Newcastle (UK), the CNRS (France), the Association of Small Villages in Catalonia (Associació de Micropobles de Catalunya) and the Association of Mountainous Municipalities in Spain (EsMontañas). The project started in Spring 2017, had a duration of three years and finished in February 2020.

In English language, ‘hamlet’ means ‘small village’ and, at the same time, Hamlet is the main character of an existential tragedy authored by William Shakespeare. In many parts of Europe, including some areas in Catalonia, sustainable development of small villages is under threat due to, among other factors, depopulation, while many migrants or unsettled people are looking for a new place to live. Ageing and depopulation make these (often rural) places more vulnerable to natural hazards (e.g. wildfires) or uncontrolled speculation/abandonment.

This project was born both from a scientific interest in knowing better the human geography and sustainability prospects in over a third of Catalonia’s territory where less than 2% of the population reside. This low population density is a huge challenge for the country governance. Thus this project aimed also to scientifically inform public policy-makers and to debate with them. In this sense, the project had also active support and participation from the Association of Small Villages in Catalonia, which gathers hundreds of local governments.

This project was based on the hypothesis that (international and internal) immigrants have the potential to make social, economic, environmental and cultural contributions to the sustainable development of small rural municipalities in Catalonia (Spain). It was inspired by humanistic geographies as well as political ecologies.

During the period 2017-2020, the main territorial scope of study and the bulk of statistical, documentary and field work was carried out in the autonomous community of Catalonia, but small comparative field work was developed in the Department of the Eastern Pyrenees (France), as well as in the Republic of Ireland (Eire) and in Northern Ireland (United Kingdom).

In brief, the main research objectives were the following:

1. To enhance knowledge of migrant pathways and settlement processes in Catalan hamlets (within the European context), analysing challenges for sustainability, as well as to study wellbeing and happiness there, paying special attention to inter-cultural instances;
2. To carry out action-research with immigrants living in hamlets who have already implemented sustainable development projects;
3. To gather data and design a tailored open-access GIS website in tune with policy-makers needs, which would also be useful for people willing to migrate to small villages.
4. The main research methods that will be used along the project are statistical, cartographical and documental work; semi-structured interviews with international immigrants and key informants, and qualitative data analysis; as well as participatory observation and action research

For more information, see: https://ods.cat/en/hamlets-immigration-and-sustainable-development-in-small-villages/

PUBLICATIONS

* Mendoza, C. (2023) “International immigration and entrepreneurship in rural areas of the Spanish Pyrenees”. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin, 72 (2), 119-131.
* Morén-Alegret, R.; Milazzo, J.; Romagosa, F. & Kallis, G. (2021) “‘Cosmovillagers’ as Sustainable Rural Development Actors in Mountain Hamlets? International Immigrant Entrepreneurs’ Perceptions of Sustainability in the Lleida Pyrenees (Catalonia, Spain)”, European Countryside Journal, 13(2), 267-296
* Morén-Alegret, R. & Mendoza, C. (2021) “Inmigración internacional y sostenibilidad en pueblos pequeños. Retos y oportunidades económicas, ambientales y sociales en el Alt Empordà (Cataluña, España)”, Revista Internacional de Estudios Migratorios, 11(2), pp. 1-35
* Mendoza, C.; Morén-Alegret, R. & McAreavey, R. (2020) “(Lifestyle) immigrant entrepreneurs in Spanish small villages: Rethinking international immigration in rural Alt Empordà, Catalonia”, BELGEO. Belgian Journal of Geography, 1
* Mendoza, C.; Morén-Alegret, R. & McAreavey, R. (2020) “Emprendimiento e inmigración internacional en áreas rurales de España”, Investigaciones Geográficas (Instituto de Geografía de la UNAM), DOI: dx.doi.org/10.14350/rig.60172
* Romagosa, F., Mendoza, C.; Mojica, L. & Morén-Alegret, R. (2020) “Inmigración internacional y turismo en espacios rurales. El caso de los "micropueblos" de Cataluña”. Cuadernos de Turismo, 46, 319-347

COMMUNICATION VIA TWITTER

Since 2017, within the framework of the applied research projects titled 'HAMLETS. Immigration and Sustainable Development in Small Villages' (2017-2020) and 'SURDIM. Sustainable Rural Development and International Immigration in the Pyrenees' (2022-2024), a number of popular science tweets are being published. These micro-publications on Twitter offer geo-demographic data and photos taken in municipalities with fewer than 2000 inhabitants. Posteriorly these photos can be linked to the Geographical Information System named GISASH that is being developed at UAB. The main hashtags are #HAMLETS #SURDIM and the Twitter accounts that can be followed for updates during the project are @RicardMoren and @CMendozaPerez.

ORGANIZATION OF ACADEMIC EVENTS

* Session Immigrant entrepreneurship, international mobilities and sustainable local development in rural areas. Commission “Global Change and Human Mobility”. International Geographical Union, IGU. Paris: Université de la Sorbonne, 18-22/07/2022. See: https://www.ugiparis2022.org/

* From February to May 2022, the 18th GRM Seminar Series on Migration was organised from the Department of Geography & ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona, UAB-GEO-GRM, including a few sessions directly or indirectly related to the Pyrenees.

• 17 February 2022, 13h, Dr Raúl Lardiés, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain: Foreign immigration from outside the EU in rural areas of Aragón: impacts and integration
• 21 March 2022, 13h, Dr Montserrat Feixas, UNHCR in Central Europe from 2013 to 2021, Hungary: Asylum challenges in Central Europe. The 2015 crisis and its consequences
• 28 April 2022, 13h, Dr Valeria Bello, Universitat Ramon Llull, URL, Spain: The role of prejudice and cognitions in the governance of international migration
• 12 May 2022, 13h, Dr Kevin Mary, Université de Perpignan Via Domitia, France: Migration-facilitating capital: Attracting and (socially) selecting African students for Canada