9 out of every 10 young think about natives of “North-Africa” or “Central-Africa” (Moroccan or Senegalese) when they hear about immigrant people, although more and more young people refer to “Latin-Americans” and “other Europeans” when they are asked on this matter. These are the conclusions of a study carried out by Francisco Jiménez Bautista, Professor of Anthropology and researcher of the Institute of Peace and Conflicts of the University of Granada, who has tried to elucidate who is “the other” for the young in Granada. The objective of the work was to analyse to what extent those immigrants who have come to Spain in the last years have been socially excluded due to their religion.
The researcher of the UGR conducted a questionnaire among 400 young people from Granada aged between 14 and 25 years old with a set of 45 questions in order to get to know their perception of the immigrants.
This way, 64.1% of the young think in the category “black” when they hear about people of a different race, followed by “Moroccan” (18%), “gipsy” (10.1%) and “yellow” (6.1%). Jiménez Bautista conducted other surveys similar to the one of 2008 in 1996, 2000 and 2004, and he says that it was in 2000 when the young included the race “Arab/Moroccan”, as up to that date nobody had ever mentioned such category.
The ‘other’ is Moslem
The Moslem is the prevailing religion among the young of Granada when they are asked what do they think when they hear about people of a different creed. The researcher from Granada says that “more and more people talk about the Buddhist and the Jewish religion, because they perceive that there are members of such cultures around them”.
In the light of the results of his work, Francisco Jiménez Bautista considers that the young from Granada, “in the construction of their otherness”, have socially and marginally excluded the Moroccan up to 2004, and they have consciously included the Latin Americans and the natives of Eastern Europe, “in a bid to place the religious nature of those groups as the main element of social exclusion in the society of Granada”.
Reference: Professor Francisco Jiménez Bautista.
Institute of Peace and Conflicts of the UGR.
Phone numbers: 958 248 355 – 958 248 367.
E-mail. fjbautis@ugr.es
