Ciudadanía y lugarGeopolíticas Cotidianas en la Periferia del Espacio Económico Europeo

Abstract

While global rates of labor migration continue to be on the rise, discrimination because of nationality remains the main threat to the democratic quality of our (European) civil societies. This type of discrimination does not only directly affect the (already inevitability precarious) migrant citizenships; it also means the degradation of our (multiple) territorial sovereignty(ies). This thesis looks into the notion of citizenship from a feminist geopolitical lens in order to contribute to the expansion of its ontological spectrum based on empirical evidence. This research delves into the interlinkages (mutually constituted and constitutive) between citizenship and place understood as a multidimensional and multiscale key geographical concept within a European context of transnational labor migration. Taking the quantitative understanding of the current migratory scenario as a starting point, this thesis explores the qualitative dimension of the geographies of migrant and translocal citizens who live and work in conditions of vulnerability (and precarity) in three post-industrial coastal cities –Gijon ( Spain), Nantes (France) and Bergen (Norway)– all of them located on the continental periphery of the Atlantic arc of the European Economic Area (EEA), the region in the world with the largest migratory flow. The main findings obtained by this citizen-based research provide evidence of the fact that precarious migrant citizens’ vulnerability at the structural level is not only of a political nature, e.g.: institutional discrimination, suffrage deprivation, low citizen participation due to time poverty; It is also environmental, economic, social, cultural and educational-based. At the grassroots level, translocal migrant citizens feel welcome in their host neighborhoods where they enjoy mostly friendly relationships. By contrast, at the professional level, migrant citizens remain helplessly exposed to labor abuses in the workplace -especially the (non-European) working poor women who are predominantly victims of ethnic discrimination and sexual violence at work.