Spanish Integration Model

This paper arises from a doctoral thesis defended in November 2012 focus on the integration / marginalization and the reconstruction of collective identity of Moroccans in Madrid. The purpose of this paper is to show that even if the access to citizenship in Spain is complicated, our autonomic decentralized system and the consequent plurality of planes integration have made actors the principals of the integration process, particularly in the local area. In Spain there is not a national integration system that is why I defined this system in the text as the Spanish integration non-system or the integration without a system. Migrants and civil national have played a central role in the integration of migrants, as well as migrant’s informal networks and civil society. Even if there were some racist attitudes and practices, we also found that taking into account the speed of the migration process and the large number of migrants who came to Spain, we had less conflict than in other countries especially in areas of everyday life. In the process of integration was required, therefore, the involvement national and migrants, a process of communication and working together. There is a loaded term in Spanish with a strong symbolic power that defines when and where this situation occurs: “convivencia” (living together).  "Convivencia" is the process by which people communicate, interact and share. The local area is a place of living together, but obviously following the logic local-global and transnational processes, the effects of these living together practices have an impact far beyond the local level. Integration from the point of view of "convivencia" produced cultural pluralism (or interculturalism) maintaining some cultural differences and promoting equal insertion of migrants.