نوین نوسازی روستایی در کاتالونیا، اسپانیا: مطالعه موردی مهاجرت، تغییرات اجتماعی و درگیری در منطقه امبردانت

The intensity of rural depopulation in Catalonia has diminished since the 1980s. New population growth patterns are occurring in rural areas, basically due to immigration. Although there has been a certain awareness of the magnitude of this process and its territorial distribution, little is known about the protagonists in this immigration and the impact on rural municipalities. Results are presented from a study of the immigration process in a group of rural inland municipalities close to the Costa Brava, a Mediterranean coastal region with extensive tourism. The great beauty of the landscape and the existence of housing stock that is being abandoned but remains desirable have led to a population influx from Catalonia’s large urban areas, especially Barcelona, purchasing these homes as a primary or secondary residence.

One of the main debates about migration to rural areas has focused on differences in participation by social class, and the resulting impact on rural society. This topic has been widely studied in Great Britain, where migration toward rural areas primarily involves a population that has been called the service class, a designation that is often related to or synonymous with middle class or new middle class. These studies describe an intense and extensive process of gentrification in a large part of rural Britain ( Champion et al., 1998, Cloke and Thrift, 1990, Cloke et al., 1995, Hoggart, 1997, Phillips, 1993 and Phillips, 2005). A similar replacement of local population, mostly farmers and working-class people, with a middle class has been studied in other countries as well ( Curry et al., 2001, Ghose, 2004, Swaffield and Fairweather, 1998 and Walker and Fortmann, 2003).

In Spain as a whole, the public perception of the countryside still focusses on the processes of abandonment, depopulation and population aging. Although these problems do affect much of the rural territory, this perception ignores the heterogeneity of the countryside. Certain areas have now entered into a dynamic of continuous and sustained population growth. In Catalonia, where there is a high level of urbanization and the capital, Barcelona, is recognized as a significant European city, the emergence of this growth dynamic is quite evident. A diverse group of well designed studies, whether of specific areas or Spain as a whole, have undertaken an assessment of these new growth dynamics, including description of the territorial limits and quantitative analysis of the impact (Camarero, 1993 and García-Pascual, 2003), but little has been done to study aspects of migration related to the impact of social factors. In this sense, we know very little about the motivation of these migrating people, their approach to life, their perception of the countryside, their approach to land use, or their potential level of social, political or civic involvement in the communities where they settle.