Formal Institutional approaches and migrant associations’ presence in

This subsection discusses the relationship between the formal institutional environment in settlement localities of migration and development policies and migrant associations’ agency in the context of the cases studied here. To disentangle the analysis, two comments are made regarding similarities between the four studied local policy environments. Subsequently, two other findings account for the differences between the migrant associations’ degrees of agency.

First, all local government actions on immigration areas have been mainly focused on social services, settlement and language services. Transnational views on the migration and development connection are normally described, in policy documents, in relation to the international cooperation sector. This occurs on an ad-hoc basis, despite the fact that other transnational activities, such as backing migrants’ electoral processes of origin, may have been supported by local governments’ immigration sub-areas of municipal governance. This finding is consistent with the idea of co-development as an intervention area mainly handled sectorially by the international cooperation sector. Under this organic umbrella, funding migrant associations in competitive calls and promoting their capacity building are co-development activities shared by the four local governments.

Second, in principle, formally, all local governments recognise the importance of migrant associations being present as civic actors. As such, migrants (regardless of origin) are seen as legitimate actors and are visible in formal documents. Hence, they are formally given the potential to have, in the terms of the framework used in this dissertation, presence. However, the references to co-development in policy documents tend to highlight migrants’ role as development agents in places of origin and less in their localities of residence. Moreover, even though all interviewees in the city argue that fostering co-development implies working in social cohesion, this is generally not highlighted in formal documents.

Third, in the sample, while neutral modes of engagement in co-development are connected to migrant associations’ presence, the nurturer modes do not. Thus, the

Mataró migrant association is a member of the cooperation council, and the migrant association in Barcelona also participates in municipal councils and in policy definition processes. As we have seen, the nurturer modes of engagement focus strongly on sending the message of co-development as a tool to work on aspects such as social cohesion or migrant associations’ empowerment. This is translated, mainly, into capacity building activities (pre-eminently with Lleida City Council) and also support for the formulation of projects and definition of co-development calls (principally Girona City Council). But when their presence is appraised, in terms of how it has been operationalized, we find that the Senegalese migrant associations of Lleida neither participate in the cooperation council nor at any other municipal space.

In Girona, only one migrant association was a member during the period considered, but is not one of the selected migrant associations studied in Girona.¹¹⁷ Moreover, those associations examined in Girona and Lleida were not formally involved in any process related to a public policy definition. During the interviews, those not accessing municipal councils or public policy definition processes did not problematize the fact that they were not represented.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that nurturer modes of engagement have an effect on how migrant representatives feel about themselves. Therefore, if we understand empowerment as a process of expanded agency with a cognitive dimension, migrant representatives (not only the ones attached to the studied migrant association) perceived training opportunities and the whole process of co-development implemented by Lleida City Council as empowering. For example, the next quote illustrates this view. Here a migrant representative expresses what he thinks co-development has offered him. The person refers to co-co-development activities implemented by the local government as real, specific, actions of support in an otherwise quite tough institutional context.

That is why I give value to co-development. Co-development is a subject that touches many things. It serves as an integration of oneself. [...] I used to think that an immigrant is going from work to his house, or to a friend's apartment or a friend's party, which is inside a house as well, not in a place that is well-made for a party. Cooperation, co-development has opened doors for me to

117 It is worth noting that this was a migrant Senegalese association, which, according to local officers, is connected to Barcelona’s migrant association (a federation).

meet people, to know where I can go to claim something, even if it's a place to hold a meeting, a dinner. I used to feel like a poor black man who was no good at all. Or silly, whatever. I've already realized that it's not like that. [...]

Because we, being Africans, are very relational people. Because our house is the jungle, there is no limit to meeting one, the other. What we have there, if we come here, we have to be locked in 100m2 at the most, for so long... It makes you [sad, you're not used to it]. If this goes together with a low self-esteem. [...] [We think that] as much as we stay here, 20-30 years, we will not have value. [...] But when you go out and meet people, you will always have someone with whom you can talk to change this thought. Because it is not good to think like that. Wherever you go keep your self-esteem high. You are a person. These are details that co-development has shown us. That's why, when a person talks about co-development here in Lleida, the person talks about this.

Migrant representative, Lleida, June 2014, my translation from Spanish (2-6-P18)

Fourth, the analysis of findings related to neutral modes of engagement stresses the difference between presence (being visible) and weight (understood as actual influence on civic, political affairs). In fact, the analysis of migrant associations’

access to municipal spaces or policy processes gives a nuanced appraisal of presence.

For instance, the association from Mataró participates in the cooperation council (there are three migrant associations participating, all of them from Senegalese origin). But officers in charge of Mataró’s International Cooperation made it explicit that they realised migrant associations had serious problems to follow the meetings (for instance, because of language barriers, or pre-knowledge of the issues tackled during the meetings). Further, the migrant representatives did not complain about the unequal effort they had to make to achieve being an active member of these spaces.

The interview with the representative of the Barcelona migrant association explained that in the case of this city, given that they are a coordinating organisation at the Catalan level, it is not directly Barcelona migrant associations who is represented in the cooperation council. Rather, it is the association member located in Barcelona who plays this role. The regulations of Barcelona’s cooperation council provide four seats to immigrant federations or associations, but until 2016 no Senegalese association had a seat.¹¹⁸ However, the federated member of Barcelona’s migrant

118 Since mid-2016, when after municipal elections of 2015 Barcelona’s Cooperation Council started meeting again, the Barcelona’s migrant association studied here became a member and atended the meetings.

association participates in the immigration municipal council (which is not the cooperation for international development council). Besides, in 2009 this same federated association was also represented in another council called the Barcelona associations’ council. By itself, the studied federation that I call Barcelona's migrant association is represented at regional level in spaces such as the Permanent Commission of the Regional Immigration and Citizenship Council (Taula de Ciutadania i la Immigració). The Barcelona migrant association has participated in relevant policy definition processes such as the National Immigration Agreement, a process undertaken at regional level, signed in 2008 (Pacte Nacional per a la Immigració). The participation of the Barcelona migrant association in this process is visible in two ways: first, because the representative of an association member (association Planeta, from Mataró) is among the 32 organisations who signed the agreement in December 2008. Secondly, because Barcelona migrant association’s itself later adhered to the agreement.

At a regional level, there has been another policy definition process aiming to reach out to migrant associations. The Co-development Strategy (Estratègia de Codesenvolupament) elaborated by the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Catalan Development Agency,¹¹⁹ undertook a work session in order to gather views on co-development in five cities (Barcelona, Girona, Tortosa, Lleida and Vic). The actors who participated are mentioned at the end in the final document. Some migrant associations are listed (the majority bring together Senegalese collectives), and all of the associations considered in this research were present in the workshops (only one workshop was held per city, in 2008), apart from Mataró, where the workshop was not undertaken. Therefore, even in localities such as Lleida, Girona and Mataró there is no clear evidence of migrant associations participating in policy-definition processes at local level, there have been initiatives at regional level to reach out to the considered collectives.

All in all, even if this dissertation has not deepened our understanding of the participation processes behind these regional policy-definition initiatives (Co-development Strategy, National Immigration Agreement) other research suggests that

119 Both the Co-development Strategy and the National Immigration Agreement are contextualised in the frame of Catalan regional policy environment in chapter 4.

the infleunce of migrant associations is not likely to be very strong. Hence, a doctoral dissertation on participation processes in the case of Catalan immigration policy (2007-2014) compares the participation in top-down institutional policy definition processes (such as the National Immigration Agreement), to other bottom-up processes such as the Platform of Mortgage Victims (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, PAH, emerged in 2009). It also examined a campaign claiming the closure of the Immigrants Detention Centre in Barcelona (Tancarem els CIE, arisen in 2014) (Castellà Josa, 2016). According to the research, which focuses on important policy definition cases, one can conclude that migrant associations were not very influential in any of these initiatives. Indeed, bottom-up process, such as Tancarem els CIE, fail when it comes to mobilising migrant associations (because of their vulnerability in the economic crisis). The Platform of Mortgage Victims, PAH, achieved migrant empowerment but at an individual (not associational) level (Castellà Josa, 2016).

To close this section, the findings show the extent to which differences across localities, even when initiatives are keen to reach out to migrant associations, can have different outcomes with respect to involving these groups as civic and political actors. The next section focuses on the analysis of policy environments in origin.

5.2 Formal governmental responses to migrants as development