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Albert Garcia Elena's two books of poetry from 2017, Silur d'amagatotis and Tòtem ordre, constitute an extraordinary aesthetic response to a contemporary situation of permanent crisis. This crisis has many names: among others, global war, the dismantling of the modern state, climate breakdown, the precarization of labor or the full commodification of social and mental life. Garcia Elena's poetry assembles singular objects that lack most of the recognizable components of the genre. The poems have no specific themes, no identifiable subjective voices and no regular formal conventions. Yet these absences do not result from modern encounters with the sublime, the unspeakable or otherness – elements that we still find in two of Garcia Elena's possible precedents from the Catalan tradition, Carles Hac Mor and Carles Camps Mundó. Instead, his poems appear as immanent modulations of words that playfully portray a voice talking to itself about the perplexity of living in a world of groundlessness and disorder. I propose to read this voice in relation to two historical phenomena: the consolidation of globalization as a perpetual present of generalized violence and the chronic condition of the Catalan desire for freedom from the Spanish state. Garcia Elena's ironic but combative, rational but magmatic, poems represent a fresh revitalization of the aesthetic experience in a seemingly postapocalyptic world. They provide a stimulating opportunity to examine the link between aesthetics and politics in the global present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the constant struggle for control over representation between gay people and Francoist state agents. Gay narrations of self did not always involve a negation of Catholic dogma, which was often reinterpreted and incorporated into articulate defenses of homoeroticism. Moreover, transnational networks built on the basis of an insider critique of the Catholic hierarchy's stance on same-sex desires preceded the formation of gay liberation fronts by decades. These networks connected Spanish and Latin American queer communities by virtue of the former's reliance on the latter's access to the publishing and entertainment industries, given the stringent censorship imposed by the Franco regime in Spain. This article focuses on judicial transcripts, photographs, personal correspondence and literary and oral sources to explore how shifting cultural ideals and lived experiences informed each other. Thus, I argue that the discrepancy between the state-enforced view of homosexuality as a set of purely physical ("putrefied") practices leading males to cave to their lowest predatory instincts and people's erotic and affective lived experiences reveals how queer communities were able to articulate dissident discourses at the interstices of homophobic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the seventeenth century, transatlantic and transpacific diasporas created one of the world's most globalized early modern societies in New Spain. As the slave trades to the colonial centers of central Mexico reached frenetic levels after the turn of the seventeenth century, processes of encounter, exchange, and transmission began to characterize these diverse communities. For "chinos" arriving in Acapulco, careful observation and experience coalesced into mobile bodies of knowledge ranging from the social practice of blasphemy to spiritual ritual. These varied modes of cultural production facilitated negotiation of enslaver/enslaved relations and represented a kaleidoscope of responses to power relations in colonial society. Through these forms of contestation, knowledge production in enslaved communities became central to the rhythms of daily life in New Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent rise in Spain of mixed unions between people born in different countries has brought about a significant increase in the number of multiethnic and multiracial individuals in the country. However, no research currently exists in Spain on the life experiences and identity processes of these mixed-parentage youth. Drawing on 124 in-depth interviews, this article examines the narratives of ethnoracially mixed descendants from diverse backgrounds in Catalonia, Spain. Our results show that identity processes and experiences of being mixed are very heterogeneous and multifaceted, and that some individuals have more choices, versus constraints, when navigating mixedness. A crucial factor affecting these outcomes is visibility – i.e. visible markers of difference from the native society, such as phenotype, language, or religious affiliation. We find that while ethnoracially mixed individuals who have more outer characteristics shared with the native majority population can develop more advantageous, symbolic, and malleable identities, individuals whose heritage involves an ancestry that is negatively minoritised within the country of residence experience greater identity mismatch, stigmatisation, and discrimination. This finding is at odds with the 'postracial' or 'colour-blind' future that might ostensibly be heralded by an ever-growing Spanish population of mixed individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present research we explored how women are perceived as a function of their reactions to a harassing situation (piropo). Piropos, which are very common in Spain, are appearance-related comments directed by men to unknown women on the street. In Study 1, participants read hypothetical vignettes where a woman reacted positively, negatively, or indifferently (between-participants design) to a "mild/gallant" piropo. Men and women (n = 118) evaluated the competence, warmth, capacity for leadership, and superficiality/profoundness of the target of the piropo. Study 2 (n = 289) was similar to Study 1 (only with a within-participants design) and included additional dependent variables concerning the target's likeability and participants' intention to establish interpersonal relations with the woman in the scenario. Results showed that both male and female participants expressed less liking for the woman who reacted positively to the piropo as well as a lower intention to establish interpersonal relations with her; they also viewed this woman as less competent and more superficial. The relation between the woman's reaction to the piropo and her likeability was mediated by the superficiality and competence with which she was perceived. The results of both studies revealed negative consequences for women who react positively to situations in which male strangers pay attention to their body. Policymakers, media, activists, and educators should be aware of how the conformity of women with traditional gender stereotypes--in this case feeling happy because they are valued by their physical appearance--can also have negative consequences for them similar to other hostile forms of stranger harassment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies women's participation in the struggle against the dictatorship in Spain (from 1960 to 1975). Drawing on life stories of women activists from el Marco de Jerez, it examines their repertoires of actions, their frames, and the lack of recognition from both academic and political spheres. A Gramscian approach and the perspective of hegemonic masculinity contribute to explain how women organized, how represented their collective action, and why their memories have been silenced. The theoretical approach has helped to identify relations of hegemony within feminist studies and political movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our article studies the evolution of social mobility in Spain and its relationship with profound political, social, and economic transformation. To that end, we investigate the transmission processes of labor occupations between parents and children, using microdata from a special module by the Spanish Living Condition Survey in 2011. In spite of the radical transformations that have taken place, the intensity of transmission has decreased only slightly, but some historical periods are more significant than others. Finally, the article concludes that intergenerational transmission processes present a clearly gender-biased tendency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the importance of Islamic religious education in public schools in Spain as an instrument in the prevention and fight against violent radicalisation. In this article, we examine the legal status of Islamic religious education and the latest regulations on Islamic religious education that emphasise the fight against Islamist terrorism. We also study the regulation of teachers of Islamic religious education and their role in the counter-narrative required to deter the message of Islamist terrorists and prevent violent radicalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking Spain as a case study, this paper analyses the institutional production of border apparatus within reception countries, which affect very diverse areas of the daily life of migrants. Hence, rather than as a rigid line dividing the population into included and excluded, the border is approached as a flexible governance mechanism that differentially regulates access to rights. Starting by analysing the formal and informal operation of some of the institutions that manage the process (immigration offices, social services and the healthcare system), an attempt is made to give an account of the norms, requirements, administrative procedures and infra-penal mechanisms that especially affect vulnerable groups, stratifying the recognition of rights and condemning subjects to a legal limbo in which their legitimacy is - at best - blurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream media's promotion of dangerously thin female images likely lowers self-image satisfaction and contributes to pathological body concerns and disordered eating among women. We tested upward and downward social-comparison effects on self-evaluations by exposing 145 Spanish women to images of thin (upward) or overweight (downward) models. We also tested whether explicitly asking or not asking participants to compare themselves with the models would moderate social comparison effects. Exposure to thin models deteriorated body image while increasing body dissatisfaction and anxiety. Conversely, exposure to overweight models improved body image and decreased body dissatisfaction but it did not affect anxiety. Whether participants were asked to compare themselves to the models explicitly or implicitly had no effect on the participants' responses. Furthermore, pre-existing body image concerns were not associated with the pre-to-post exposure effects. We propose that increasing the representation of normal weight and overweight women in media advertisements could help to neutralize or at least reduce the negative impact of media's practice to idealize thin and overly thin women as symbols of female beauty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a mixed method analysis of the language attitudes held by secondary education students of Romanian origin, which are members of the second largest immigrant population living currently in Catalonia. The relevance of this data is based on the cardinal role played by attitudes in the success of any educational or linguistic policy (Lewis, E. Glyn. 1981. Bilingualism and bilingual education. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.) – a topic of special relevance in contexts with considerable migratory influxes, such as Catalonia, which aims to achieve social cohesiveness in a framework of interculturalism and multilingualism. The various initiatives implemented for this purpose include the heritage language maintenance programs, such as the "Romanian Language, Culture, and Civilization" (RLCC) program. The results showed that the young Romanians had the most favourable attitudes towards Spanish, followed closely by Romanian, and lastly Catalan, which was the least valued language. Furthermore, these attitudinal patterns were not determined by RLCC attendance. The insights provided by the in-depth interviews indicated various components and meanings associated with the attitudes towards the three languages. Namely, attitudes towards Spanish were primed by its international status and ease of learning, while attitudes towards Catalan were build on its integrative value and social status. Although esteemed for its emotional and symbolic bonds, Romanian seemed to be on a path towards invisibilization. Finally, the educational and social implications of these findings are discussed, emphasising the importance of involving and working with both the autochthonous and the Romanian immigrant population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies the stages involved in the process of diffusion of first cohabitations in Spain, taking into account: generation; period of union formation; educational level; and the birth of a child. These were essential elements for interpreting the data by using a competing risks methodology (marriage vs. cohabitation as first union choices). The results show a rapid diffusion of cohabitation as a type of first union in Spain, which began with the women who formed a union between 1980 and 1989, and followed a top-down spread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Granada and Lisbon, cities defined as 'super-diverse', host dynamics of exchange and interactions among sociocultural groups that go beyond mere coexistence. Educational environments (both formal and informal) host these aforementioned relationships especially among teenagers. Adolescents represent a significant social group as the 'subjects/objects' of public interventions through intercultural programmes and are protagonists of daily intercultural dialogues. In this article, we approach these ideas through the concept of conviviality. We comparatively analyse the indicators from the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), a policy instrument-tool, applied in the education field and the data obtained through ethnographic research carried out in educational environments in Granada and Lisbon in specific programmes targeting adolescents and youth. Through this analysis we unveil the gaps of migration integration indexes such as MIPEX in the field of integration in education, compared with an ethnographic assessment of intercultural relations on how youngsters live and learn interculturality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that looks at clinical epistemology of hydrophobia, including causes, effects, and common treatments in order to understand how the narratives of these victims fit into the fabric of King Alfonso's book "Cantigas de Santa Maria." It represents an informative portrait of 13th-century Castilian ways of life and belief systems, and human illnesses.

A literary criticism of the book "Miau" by Benito Pérez Galdós is presented. It outlines the characters and explores their relation with modern Spanish society. It reflects on the role of Darwinism or Social Darwinism in the novel's portrayal of Madrilenian society. An overview of the story is also given.

The objective of this study is the characterisation of the Spanish autonomous communities as tourist destinations for Spanish trips, based on the activities carried out, using the principal component method. The Spanish tourist is not only motivated by the sun and beach. This paper aims to clarify how Spanish people consider other tourist destinations. We contrast how frequently other types of tourism are valued when choosing their destination within the Spanish geography. Inland tourism, sports tourism, entertainment as well as gastronomy are becoming increasingly important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to develop an index composed of different spatial variables to measure the urban sprawl levels of a municipality located in Southern Spain. According to the findings, urban sprawl can be measured not only on the metropolitan level but also on a more detailed and precise level, such as sub-municipal. A group of experts chosen for their suitability in measuring urban sprawl select six spatial variables (population density, net residential density, coverage ratio, land use types, percentage of residential land use, and average year of construction). These variables are aggregated using Choquet integral, a technique that combines interactions between those variables providing greater coherence to the complexity that is inherent in the creation of composite sprawl indexes. This methodology has been demonstrated to be valid and appropriate in evaluating urban expansion at sub-municipal level, but can also be applied to other scales once it is clearly a phenomenon in which interaction between criteria exists. The resulting composite index allows the assignment of different levels of sprawl to the urban areas consistent with their morphology and landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work proposes the term 'naval elites' in order to provide a new interpretation of social change in the eighteenth century from a comparative perspective. Naval elites, a social group formed by a part of the naval officer corps and midshipmen, are here defined as a historical instrument, the particular and intriguing features of which may be useful in the revision of some perspectives on social change. In particular, the authors analyse shifting power relationships through the reconsideration of naval patronage and bureaucracy, revisit the process of naval professionalization and the transformation of the concept of merit, and suggest that naval elites embodied new notions of social distinction and exclusiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is threefold. First, it aims at understanding the dynamic positions of foundations (institutional proximities and purposes, approaches and roles) relative to church, state, market, and civil society. The institutional factors behind the transformation of the small and heterogeneous set of foundations existing in the country in the late 1980s, under scattered and restrictive regimes, into a relatively sizeable and influential sector of formally homogeneous nonprofits are explored. Second, it approaches the conceptualization of foundations in Spain and describes the recent evolution and current configuration of the sector with 2009 (year of the first foundation census) and 2014 (latest estimate available) as reference dates—illustrating them in comparative perspective. Third, its goal is to shed light on their advantages and disadvantages for relevant stakeholders in the context of evolving institutional proximities, foundation models, and prevailing typologies. In order to structure the discussion, the purposes, approaches, roles, benefits, and drawbacks of Spanish foundations will be compared with the German and U.S. anchors as depicted by Anheier and Hammack in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the daily intake of polychlorinated biphenyls not similar to dioxins (NDL-PCB) derived from fish consumption in Spain and compare it with tolerance limits in order to establish a safe threshold so that the nutritional benefits derived from fish consumption may be optimized.Design: Analysis of NDL-PCB in fish samples and ecological study of the estimated intake of NDL-PCB from fish consumption in different Spanish population groups.Subjects: National representative sample of the Spanish population.Results: The intake of NDL-PCB was estimated in two different scenarios: upper bound (UB) and lower bound (LB). Estimating intake using the average concentration of NDL-PCB found in the fish samples, the intake for 'other children' is estimated as: 1·80 (UB) and 5·33 (LB) ng/kg per d at the 50th percentile (P50); 7·39 (UB) and 21·94 (LB) ng/kg per d at the 95th percentile (P95) of fish consumption. Estimated NDL-PCB intake shoots up in the toddler group, reaching values of 30·43 (UB) and 90·37 (LB) ng/kg per d at P95. Estimated intake values are lower than those previously estimated in Europe, something expected since in previous studies intake was estimated through total diet. In adults, our estimated values are 1·59 (UB) and 4·72 (LB) ng/kg per d at P50; 4·95 (UB) and 14·72 (LB) ng/kg per d at P95.Conclusions: NDL-PCB concentration in fish is under the tolerance limits in most samples. However, daily intake in consumers of large quantities of fish should be monitored and special attention should be given to the youngest age groups due to their special vulnerability and higher exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

inequality in net nutritional status, measured through the average adult male height, and its evolution, is still unknown as far as Spain in the late XVIII century is concerned.Objective: assess social and occupational differences in the average adult male height of cohorts born in the late 18th century and their evolution over time.Method: analysis of anthropometric data provided by a general conscription which took place in 1808 in the ancient province of Toledo. This source includes the age, height, and profession of all men living in a giving community with an age included between 16 and 40 years as far as 90 communities are concerned. Only data for adult population (more than 21 years old) are used in this investigation. n = 8.029.Results: differences of almost 5 cm between the tallest group - landowners and people working in high-skilled services- and the shortest - servants - are detected. These differences show a gradient related to the access to the property of land, the educational status and the professional qualification. The Coefficient of Variation shows a trend to higher inequality during this period.Conclusion: inequality in the net nutritional status of adult population was high and increased during the period considered in this study. Inequality within some socio-professional groups, such as farmers and craftsmen, also increased, while it did not show major changes in the other groups. The trend which emerges from the data can be explained by the increasing economic inequality, the relative increase in food prices and the fall in the incomes of certain social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed the emigration of young Spanish people searching for labor opportunities. A decade after the beginning of the worldwide economic crisis in 2007, the rapid deterioration of living conditions and lack of opportunities for personal development combined with the breakdown of professional expectations have led thousands of young people to emigrate from Spain, creating the so-called youth exodus. The press has paid recurrent attention to this phenomenon, often using eye-catching headlines such as ‘Brain Drain’. Given the regular interest of the media in this phenomenon, the objective of this research is to analyze the media coverage of the drain of Spanish talent capital, or the emigration of young Spanish people seeking a better future, to create a distributive map that defines the characteristics and trends of this coverage. The analyzed corpus comprises 346 articles from eight Spanish and eleven international newspapers. The articles were coded based on descriptive variables (i.e., author, publication year, newspaper and language) and categorical variables (i.e., section, method, approach to the phenomenon, assessment of the phenomenon and overview of the phenomenon). The results indicate a significant increase in press coverage over the past few years and reveal associations between assessment of the phenomenon and year and between assessment of the phenomenon and section. As a result of this research, new investigative lines are unveiled regarding the social construction of the phenomenon in the media and the identity and individual construction of the ‘truncated careers’ of young Spanish people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catalan young adults have found themselves as prominent actors in important social, political and economic changes that Catalonia is currently experiencing. How are their life goals related to these events? We explore self-oriented, prosocial and change-oriented life goals and their expected social benefits among 160 Catalan university students who completed an online survey. Mean differences between highly and scantly change-oriented students were strong in their endorsement of prosocial life goals and mild in self-oriented life goals. Linear regression found modest predictive value for students’ expectations of producing social benefits based on prosocial and change-oriented life goals, but not self-oriented life goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the development of amateur cinema in Catalonia in the 1930s is key to understanding the role that film played in Spain’s complex engagement with modernity. I pose amateur cinema as a forgotten avant-garde that spearheaded the emergence of film culture beyond the commercial screen in regions with minor film industries. I examine the particular visual regime fostered by these filmmakers, the distribution of social bodies in their films, and their class-oriented view of reality. I argue that their films embodied the anxiety of a dominant class faced with the reality that public life suddenly had to be shared with the so-called masses who were advancing to the foreground of society. Therefore, I understand the cultural production of Catalan amateurs as a reflection of the archaic class relations that were fueling radicalization in the Spanish sociopolitical realm. The amateur archive is thus a necessary repository to aid our understanding of how moving images became the most widespread form of cultural representation—but also social domination and indoctrination—throughout the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic climate change is causing an increase in average global temperature and sudden changes in every climatic variable. Temperatures rise and precipitation reduction, among others will have intense and deep impacts not only in ecosystems, but also in economic activities and our own society. Many of the landscapes we know nowadays could disappear in the coming years and everyday products could increase their prices. Economic damages might result in new structural unemployment situations, exacerbating energy poverty and social inequalities among most vulnerable groups, what will force planning earlier adaptation measures related to new scenarios where an adverse meteorology will be the "new normal". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a new critical tool through which to analyze discursive production infin-de-sigloSpain. Considering the cognitive transformations triggered by industrialization, it examines the conceptual models that intellectuals and artists used to evaluate social and economic problems. I propose that the industrial economy, particularly in its emphasis on the human capacity to transform reality through energy and work, produced a new logic that permeated the ways in which literary, political and social discourses of the period appropriated scientific frameworks concerning the material changes of modernization. The article demonstrates how the metaphor of the foundry came to operate as a central element of late nineteenth-century diagnoses and prescriptions concerning Spanish society. It does so by interrogating two public interventions by physicist and educator Laureano Calderón, which demonstrate that industrial, scientific and technological models determined the strategies of representation used to evaluate the most urgent problems of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Spain, many experiences in slum clearance have been focused solely on eliminating the most visible aspects of the problem, creating social dissatisfaction. This article analyzes the extent to which new policies of relocation and dispersion recently applied in the slum areas of northwest Spain, foster favorable attitudes towards social inclusion of the displaced persons, who are mostly Roma. A questionnaire was applied in order to capture the perception of both those affected by relocations and those who receive the displaced persons in their neighborhoods. By quantitative, exploratory data analysis, we have detected a good social predisposition towards social inclusion of underprivileged people in the process of adaptation to live in houses with appropriate infrastructure, identifying those aspects needed to strengthen these kinds of interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migration has become a highly relevant issue over the last decade. In this paper, we study the homeownership and living conditions of the immigrant population in Spain in a period of economic growth. In particular, we analyse the decisions for tenure, quality of housing and the overcrowding rate. Additionally, we test the hypothesis that the behaviour connected to these decisions is divergent among immigrants according to their country of origin. Using data from the National Immigrant Survey, we found that economic factors and immigration-specific variables are strong predictors of the tenure and quality of housing. Individual characteristics and family structure are the main determinants of overcrowding. The results showed differences in immigrant behaviour by country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article proposes a new methodology to measure precarious employment with a multidimensional approach. The adjusted multidimensional precariousness rate employed to measure job precariousness is calculated on a counting approach and exhibit several advantages, including its decomposability according to the relative contribution to total precariousness of different dimensions and sub-populations. For illustrative purposes, the methodology is applied to the Spanish case using microdata from the Encuesta de Estructura Salarial (Wage Structure Survey) and considering three precariousness dimensions of jobs (low wages, fixed-term contracts and part-time work). The evidence obtained shows that at the beginning of the economic crisis there was an increase in the incidence and intensity of precariousness for new jobs created in the Spanish economy. Moreover, obtained evidence shows that the incidence of precarious employment is particularly high in certain economic sectors and for females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correlation of economic, social and educational achievements between generations of the same family is a matter of great interest for the analysis of equal opportunities in society. The aim of this article is to quantify the impact and extent of the intergenerational transmission of poverty in Spain. Using data from the specific module on the intergenerational transmission of economic disadvantage in the 2011 Life Conditions Survey, propensity score matching was used to study the relationship between the economic disadvantage of one generation and the next. The results show that having economic disadvantage during adolescence increases the probability of poverty in adulthood. This impact has been reduced in younger generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we examine the evolution of suicide rates in Spain from 1910 to 2011. As something new, we use standardised suicide rates, making them perfectly comparable geographically and in time, as they no longer reflect population structure. Using historical data from a series of socioeconomic variables for all Spain's provinces and applying new techniques for the statistical analysis of panel data, we are able to confirm many of the hypotheses established by Durkheim at the end of the 19th century, especially those related to fertility and marriage rates, age, sex and the ageing index. Our findings, however, contradict Durkheim's approach regarding the impact of urbanisation processes and poverty on suicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novelistic production related to the 2008 financial crisis has been partially studied from the lens of the label of “literatura de la crisis.” In this article, I analyze the complex and essential transformations suffered by literary writing practices in contemporary Spain where ill attention has been devoted to the social, political, and aesthetic implications of neoliberal globalization in rural areas. Departing from a thorough conceptualization of the notion of “literatura de la crisis” and its paradoxical impact over the most recent literary production, I study the rural discourse and the emerging academic challenges for the assessment of the rural experience in literary works. In conclusion, I set the main principles for the development of a transposable model of textual analysis that will shed new light on the cultural representation of the rural sphere in the aftermath of the 2008 financial recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying grassroots initiatives which aim to respond to environmental and social crisis is of renewed importance nowadays, in the aftermath of the 2008-9 financial crisis in southern Europe. This paper studies people's motivations for becoming part of an eco-community in Catalonia, Spain, through interviews with 29 informants. The research is part of a larger study, based on ethnographic data collected between 2013 and 2015 in 27 eco-communities. The paper shows the extent to which people who joined an eco-community were driven by ideological reasons, adopting a livelihood strategy, or by a combination of both factors in the years following the crisis. We argue that the social and economic crisis has had an impact on the factors motivating people to join these communities, with an increase in the number of people driven by materialistic motives, relative to those who joined for ideological reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the rhythm of temporary mobility experiences of young Eastern Europeans in Spain, after the European Union ( EU) enlargement towards the East. Following Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis approach, and drawing on 60 in-depth qualitative interviews, this paper investigates how rhythms are linked to youth mobility and how different interplays of rhythms are connected and disconnected in multiple ways. I argue that both the EU socio-economic context and the personal and professional life-course circumstances of young Eastern Europeans who practice mobility create different, uneven rhythms that influence their everyday lives and their perceptions of mobility. This paper highlights the issue of rhythmic change in temporary mobility, uncovering 'arrhythmic' mobility, reflected in the loss and insecurity in the lives of those who practice it; 'polyrhythmic' mobility, practised by people looking to study and/or work and expressed through uncertainty on the one hand and the possibility of establishing a certain rhythm in their lives on the other; and 'eurhythmic' mobility, used by those with a stable professional status in one of the EU countries, in this case, Spain. The conclusions provide a better comprehension of Lefebvre's thinking, offering insights for wider applications. They show the need to advance the theoretical and empirical understandings of rhythm in relation to mobility during the lifecourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the unequal university trajectories of young Ecuadorians in Spain and Ecuador during the crisis focusing on their mobility strategies in relation to public policies. We examine the trajectories of three groups: sons and daughters of the 2000 migration wave from Ecuador to Spain who access Spanish universities, those who have returned to study in Ecuador, and those who carry out postgraduate studies funded by the Ecuadorian government. The research employs a qualitative methodology based on interviews, focus groups and a survey with candidates who took the exam for admittance into Ecuador's public universities. The first group must downgrade their expectations in order to continue their studies. Their experience contrasts starkly with Ecuadorians undertaking post-graduate studies in Spain, whose heterogenous trajectories are upwardly and geographically mobile. The case of the returned students shows a broader strategy that depends on transnational networks shaped over more than a decade of Ecuador-Spain migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines 3 of Carmen Martín Gaite’s texts that unfold in New York: her posthumously published collage notebookVisión de Nueva York(2005), the poem “Todo es un cuento roto en Nueva York” (1983) and the short novelCaperucita en Manhattan(1990). Through the critical lenses of Lefebvre, de Certeau, Baudrillard, Wilson and others, this paper explores how Martín Gaite depicts women’s spatial practice, as they make their way out of interior spaces to access urban space. By focusing on collages inVisión de Nueva Yorkthat contain windows or personal photographs, one can observe that, as time passes, the author’s assemblages communicate an increased sense of belonging after her initial anxiety about inhabiting a new city. Connections can be drawn among specific pages ofVisión de Nueva Yorkand the poem “Todo es un cuento roto en Nueva York”, where it is possible to see how the author develops ideas that she will later use inCaperucita en Manhattan. Scholars to date have paid little critical attention to Martín Gaite’s poetry, and this study attempts to fill in this gap by analyzing a poem that can be read as a precursor to her short novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay proposes that Jesús Moncada’sCamí de sirga(The Towpath) depicts the social as a complex assemblage composed of a vortex of interfacing subcomponents. The novel fictionalizes the final half-century of Mequinensa, an Aragonese town flooded due to the construction of the Riba-roja reservoir. I argue thatCamí de sirgagrants two natural objects – the Ebre River and lignite coal – a vibrant agency that by turns territorializes and deterritorializes Mequinensa’s modes of collective being. In this way, the Ebre and coal are both natural and cultural at once and mimic the function of what Michel Serres termed “quasi-objects”. Through its emphasis on the mediating function of quasi-objects,Camí de sirgashows that any ontology of place must consider the agentive possibilities of nonhuman elements to explain what motivates and inflects social association. In addition, the essay will draw upon Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of assemblage to show how a close examination of a small town on thefranja d’Aragóilluminates macro-processes of transformation, such as Franco’s hydro-modernization of the Spanish landscape from the 1950s onwards, as well as the evolving relationship between war, revolution and fossil-fuel production earlier in the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is concerned with the ways in which the social, political and economic aftermath of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis has shaped small-scale, independent film- and video-making in Spain, specifically by LGBTQ artists. Exploring two autonomous author–producer–agencies – Emociones Produce/WeShoot Agencia Visual/Juanma Carrillo and Volando Vengo-Moviethinking/Rut Suso – it considers their strategies in relation to processes of austerity and attrition, circa 2012 to 2016. The main concern is with alterations in forms of expression in a directly visual sense but also in forms of professional survival; detailed analysis of these aspects is undertaken in order to nuance understandings of the cultural effects of crisis and post-crisis in Spain. The essay covers both niche queer video and the imagery of social and commercial entrepreneurialism. Where Emociones Produce/Carrillo’s work is marked by the image of the vulnerable body and a mood of disruption, the varied image work of Volando Vengo-Moviethinking/Suso places commercial and social commitments in a tensive relationship with artistic demands in a bricolage of social-entrepreneurial, creative and pragmatic effects. Attending to crossovers in both case studies between art making, filmmaking and commissioned publicity helps add detail to the map of the processes of crisis and post-crisis in Spain in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential emancipation in Spain is not unaffected by the characteristics of the broader housing context. As a process, emancipation is not only dependent on the individual attributes of young people, but can also be explained by a provision system characterized by the predominance of home ownership (in detriment to rental housing) and high prices, which make access to housing difficult for young people. Drawing on sources such as the Spanish Labour Force Survey and the Housing Census (2001 and 2011), this article confirms the existence of internal heterogeneity, arguing that the different characteristics of the tenancy system of primary residencies and in efforts to access available housing on the market - from a comparative regional perspective - are influencing emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La Cañada Real is an informal settlement of about 15 kilometers long at the south-east of Madrid. This paper examines forced evictions in this settlement between 2007 and 2012 in connection to the media and political construction of La Cañada as a 'problem'. Taking the case of people who were displaced in situ by the evictions, it shows the consequences of evictions in terms of vulnerability and questioning of citizenship. Forced evictions in La Cañada Real could also be part of a larger process of population displacement and accumulation by dispossession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a reading of the novel El alquiler del mundo (2010), by Spanish writer Pablo Sánchez as an imaginative product of the ideology of contemporary capitalism in Spain and a critical response to that same ideology. The result is the portrayal of current Spain as a mysterious and fantastic society, in which individuals experience the economic and social relations proper to what Guy Debord termed 'la société du spectacle' as subjugating forces out of their control. Through the main protagonist, this novel shows the destructive effects on personal memory and identity of reification and the mediation of images, while exploring the possibility of a counter-discourse for the self-restoration of the individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the degree of recognition of the regulations of Islamic law by Spanish courts from the perspective of legal pluralism. It therefore first sets out the conception of legal pluralism as a new regulatory paradigm and its recent evolution towards a more subjective perspective; secondly, it raises the main institutional and ethical issues arising out of the possibility of recognising legal systems that are seen as culturally alien; and, finally, it makes an analysis of the mechanisms used by Spanish courts to decide on the recognition of some controversial questions of Islamic law in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to understand the limits on the expansion of the public space that is occurring through democratic innovations, and to investigate strategies for overcoming these limits. With an approach rooted in standpoint epistemology, this article studies the participation experiences of sixteen women belonging to a feminist subaltern counterpublic in fifteen apparatuses in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country. The study considers that this expansion of the public space has taken place with three limits, related to the de-legitimisation of the private, the undervaluation of relational aspects and the naturalization of a universal idea of participation. Opposing this, the article states that the practice of counterpublics facilitates greater inclusion in the designs of democratic innovations due to those parallel publics’ subaltern position in the public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an exploratory space-time analysis called spMorph, this article explores how the spatial distribution of international migration across the Spanish provinces has evolved over the period 1998-2010. The chief advantage of this approach is that it permits the unambiguous identification of two key components in a spatial redistribution process, namely the shocks to the spatial distribution and the duration of regime fades. The results of the analysis show that administrative regions do not provide a reliable picture of the real dynamics in Spain's international migration distribution. In addition, the identification of two spatial shocks reveals the existence of three spatial regimes that consistently characterize the various phases that international migration has been through since the late 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most significant institutional responses to racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance was the creation of an Observatory that would take on a real set of challenges and objectives arising from the government's commitment to this problem, which is common to all Countries of the European Union. The Spanish Observatory of Racism and Xenophobia (OBERAXE), attached to the General Secretariat of Immigration and Emigration (SGIE), has the following roles (RD 343/2012, of February 10): to compile and analyze information on racism and xenophobia, to increase the knowledge of the situation and its evolution prospects, through the implementation of an information network; to promote the principle of equal treatment and non-discrimination and to fight racism and xenophobia; and to collaborate and coordinate with the various public and private, national and international actors involved in the prevention and fight againts racism and xenophobia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spain did not experience first- or second-wave feminism simultaneously with its European neighbours due primarily, albeit not exclusively, to the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975). Following the transition to democracy, the twenty-first century media-scape often appears to be firmly committed to the discourse of post-feminism, an adscription that might be construed as a paradigmatic example of cultural and social normalisation. There is, nevertheless, a paradox in undergoing a transition from what we might term pre- to post-feminism; is it possible to disavow and supersede a movement that never genuinely took root? This essay critically interrogates the assumption that Spanish cultural production is committed to post-feminism, focussing on the eight films directed by Spanish women that received general domestic distribution in a twelve-month period commencing in September 2007. I draw upon personal interviews with women filmmakers alongside a general discussion of the films themselves in an attempt to contextualise the on- and off-screen gender(ed) politics of women in front of and behind the camera within both wider socio-broader practices in Spain, and the transnational idiom of (post-)feminism. My hypothesis is that the most compelling cinematic response to the machismo and misogyny of Spanish film and society is to be found in middle-brow melodrama, a genre all too often dismissed by Spanish critics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to achieve a better understanding of the deprivation inequalities existing between immigrants from poor countries and natives. We assume that this risk is mainly explained by social class, but it is also necessary to consider immigrant-specific factors that may increase it. The analysis consisted of a combination of factorial and cluster analyses in order to obtain a typology of material deprivation, as well as several multinomial logistic regressions to determine which socio-demographic factors are more closely associated with each profile of material deprivation. The results indicate that social class is a powerful factor in explaining the material deprivation of immigrants from poor countries, but that it is not the only one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this joint paper Laura Muñoz Pérez and Trevor Dadson will examine the possibilities women had when participating in the cultural life at court, showing the relationships of patronage between noblewomen, women writers and other writers, and how this was also a way of promotion. Tied in with this will be an examination of the role of noblewomen in society at large, in particular the fact that they had more power and influence than is usually ascribed to them, especially but not solely if they were widows, when they often ended up running vast estates in the name of their eldest son (if they had one). Also, as ladies at court (‘damas de la reina’) these noblewomen had another form of influence, as they often acted as the eyes and ears of their fathers, brothers and husbands. The largely female court established around the Empress María of Austria in the Descalzas Reales in the early seventeenth century has been the subject of study, but the royal court under Philip III and Philip IV and the powerful women there still requires attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]