Gender, Bureaucracy, and the Political Efficacy of African Immigrants in Spain

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security III & Migration and Citizenship
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Migration and Citizenship

Abstract

The predominant manner by which non-citizen immigrants interact with the state is by means of street-level bureaucrats, including teachers, public healthcare workers, and the police. In addition to services or resources, these interactions also provide immigrants with information about the state and their place in society, in the same way policies often indicate who is considered a ‘valued member’ of the political community (Mettler and Soss 2004). The literature on immigrant integration in Europe has burgeoned within the past two decades as foreigners from the Global South, especially from former colonies, have begun to arrive en masse.
While migrants were originally predominantly male, a “feminiziation” of the immigrant population has taken place on account of labor migration and family reunion policies (Kofman 1999, Boswell and Geddes 2010), thereby compelling gendered analyses of immigrant integration (Jones-Correa 1998, Piper 2006). Building on research that has found women tend to come into broader contact with a range of public institutions than do men, particularly if they have children (Jones-Correa 1998), I ask: how do gendered patterns of interaction with the bureaucratic state affect the political efficacy and sense of belonging of male and female immigrants?

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Spain has become the top immigrant receiving country in Europe, with most immigrants originating from Mali, Guinea, and Gambia (Benavides 2018). In addition to its status as a top destination for Sub-Saharan African immigrants, Spain’s highly decentralized state allows its regions great discretion over policy, resulting in multi-level governance of migrant integration and context-dependent experiences for immigrants (Crul and Schneider 2010, Scholten 2013). This paper uses a comparative design of the Malian and Equatorial Guinean communities in Madrid and Catalonia to argue that while women are more likely to interact with the bureaucratic state than men, their level of interaction and its quality largely depends on their country of origin and local context. By comparing these groups in two vastly different contexts, I show when and how some immigrants are afforded greater access to the state, which then leads to differences in their political efficacy and sense of belonging.

Author

• Andrea Pena-Vasquez, University of Notre Dame