Identity Formation Dynamics in Post-Migrant Spain: The Family and the Barrio

After the migratory boom of the early 2000s, Spain is now in a post-migration phase marked by the rise of a new generation of migrant descendants. This study, based on ethnographic research through in-depth interviews and participant observation on social networks, explores the identity formation processes among the children of Moroccan migrants in Spain. It highlights the family and the barrio [the neighborhood] as key spaces for socialization that shape individuals’ sense of self and their connections to both Spanish society and their parents' country and culture of origin.

For the first generation of Moroccan migrants in Spain, migration was a transitional phase that inevitably required negotiating new meanings and identities. This generation lived a divided existence between two countries, leading to an ongoing mediation between multiple affiliations and attachments—a unique identity shaped by the migration experience and their long-term stay in Spain. My research explores how identity dynamics shift in the post-migration phase, where generational factors and the absence of the physical act of migration play a crucial role in negotiating identities, affiliations, and attachments, both within the community and in relation to broader society.

I have identified various spaces of socialization—both symbolic and material—where descendants of Moroccan migrants feel interpellated into their parents' culture and country of origin. Within the family and the barrio, continuous negotiations take place in the process of constructing a potential Moroccan identity, leading to dynamics that are specific to descendants of migrants in Spain. These individuals often feel pressured to define and identify themselves in specific ways, which are sometimes exclusive or exclusionary, forcing identity (re)constructions as they resist representations that deeply challenge their sense of self.