Testing the Relationship between Intermarriage and Socio-cultural Integration in Catalonia, Spain. A Multi-method Analysis

Séminaire de l’unité MIM.

Conférence de Dan Rodriguez-Garcia -Associate Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Autonomous University of Barcelona

Discutante : Beate Collet, Maître de conférences, Université Paris-Sorbonne et membre du GEMASS (UMR 8598)

For over a century, social scientists have claimed that patterns of intermarriage are one of the most important tests for determining societal structure and for exposing social boundaries. Further, intermarriage is thought to be a crucial indicator of immigrant social and cultural integration, which is one of the greatest challenges that modern societies face at present, especially in places that have undergone dramatic and unprecedented changes in their socio-cultural and demographic composition because of international migration. Catalonia, Spain, is one such region that has reached a level of "super-diversity" and ethnocultural "mixedness" that compares with that of traditional countries of immigration. The causes, meanings, and consequences of mixed unions in Catalonia, however, have not yet been studied in depth: Does intermarriage lead to the greater socio-cultural integration and upward social mobility of immigrants and/or the children of immigrants? Does the formation of mixed/hybrid identities resulting from these unions lead to new understandings of national identity? How does intermarriage affect immigrants’ sense of belonging and exercising of citizenship? To shed some light on these questions, I will discuss the preliminary findings from two of my ongoing research projects on immigration and intermarriage in Catalonia. These investigations, which compare results for immigrants in mixed and non-mixed unions, use an interdisciplinary, mixed-method approach to analyse settlement processes in the host society, the composition of personal networks, patterns of socialising and social participation, identity processes, and social capital acquisition. Preliminary information suggests a more complex picture of mixedness than has often been theorized.