Codevelopment and citizenship: the nexus between policies on local migrant incorporation and migrant transnational practices in Spain

Abstract

Over the last decade both national and local actors in Spain have picked up on international trends encouraging a policy framework of migration and development. Policies of codevelopment are tied in with issues of migration management in the sense of linking current and future migration flows with processes of development in the country of origin. However, this article demonstrates how codevelopment policies and initiatives of local governments in Catalonia also relate to migrants' local process of incorporation in their country of residence. In so doing, the article seeks to bridge and contribute to studies of migration and development as well as issues of national and local citizenship and migrant incorporation. Importantly, the article highlights the role of receiving country local governments in the nexus between migrant transnational practices and processes of incorporation.

Keywords:

• Spain
• Catalonia
• codevelopment
• citizenship
• transnational
• migration

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the organizers and participants of seminars at the Danish Institute of International Studies, COMCAD/Bielefeld University, CERI/SciencesPo and Bremen University for critical and helpful comments on various earlier versions of this paper.

Thank you also to the two anonymous referees as well as Rosario Portero for her invaluable research assistance.

Notes

1. This research has been funded by the Ramon y Cajal Programme of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

2. With regard to the municipalities, an overview of codevelopment project based on data from migrant associations, NGOs, and the Fons Català database was conducted. Twelve municipalities engaged in codevelopment were contacted and further documentary material collected. In-depth interviews were conducted with representatives from six municipalities: Sant Celoni; Mataró; Sant Feliu; Barcelona; Montcada I Reixac; and Perpetua de Montgoda. In addition, speeches by representatives of municipal administration at seminars on codevelopment have been recorded and transcribed.

3. For an interesting analysis of the local-to-local context for Turkish migrants' transnational engagement, see Caglar (2005).

4. Although the use of the term ‘citizenship’ for this type of activity is an exercise in conceptual overstretching in the view of several scholars (Goldring 2002; Fox 2005), who prefer to use the term ‘membership’ instead.

5. Please note that the Spanish term ciudadanía means both citizenship and membership. Original titles of all policy plans mentioned in the text can be found in the corresponding references.

6. Nevertheless, a series of reciprocal bilateral agreements have secured local voting rights for migrants from, especially, Latin American countries.

7. In particular, the European Council Presidency Conclusions on a global approach to migration, December 2005, the EU Commission Communication on migration and development of September 2005 and the position and communication of the Council and Commission respectively 2006 related to the United Nations High Level Dialogue. For an overview and links to these documents, see http://www.migrantdevelopment.org/index.php?id=24 (accessed February 25, 2009).

8. Conceptually, the work of Sami Naïr for the Interministerial Mission for Development and International Migration (MICOMI) is noted for the innovative idea of making migrants protagonists of migration and actors of development. However, the implementation of the programmes focused on return of migrants and illustrates how codevelopment is embedded in policies to alleviate ‘pressure of migration’ (Lacroix 2005).

9. For an overview of codevelopment policies and practices in other parts of Spain see Gimenez et al. (2006).

10. In more recent Catalan policy documents, such as Catalan Plan of Citizenship and Immigration or the Annual Plan for Development 2008 by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD), this conceptualization is not taken much further as it awaits the adoption of a Green Paper on Codevelopment launched in 2008.

11. This is according to a survey published by Fons Català where they have obtained information about 540 municipalities, of which 140 are not engaged in development work or emergency relief (Fons Català 2007a).

12. In addition to the projects listed in the Fons Català database, there are projects funded by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD) and other levels of government such as the Barcelona City Council.

13. See, project 1360 in the database of Fons Català projects, http://www.fonscatala.org/versio2004/catala/inicio/lineasdetreball/.