Policies of Quieting

Convivencia is a specific historical term that has come to represent the idea of tolerant aand peaceful co-existence. Conflicts and Convivencia scrutinises the relations between cultural diversity and social conflicts and considers why some social conflicts are said to be inherently cultural. It does this through a ‘multi-scalar extended case study’ approach of the social construction of a problem and its solutions. This is an innovative approach that sheds light on the multiple local-global processes inherent to the phenomenon starting from an urban ethnography of a small town in Northern Catalonia.


This way the book analyses the simultaneously local-global transformation of migration and societies, connecting the local processes of production of space and place making with the larger processes of migration, economic crisis and social transformation, and finally, the responses to these changes from institutions, NGOs and social groupings.


This work allows for a deeper understanding of the complex social transformation that migration as a phenomenon is part of but also affected by, impulses and articulates culturally. It focuses particularly on the interaction between mobility and settlement and the socio-cultural processes at different scales, through the vectors of production and reproduction of space.

El objetivo general de esta tesis ha sido analizar las relaciones entre la diversidad cultural y los conflictos sociales y considerar por qué se dice que algunos conflictos sociales son intrínsecamente culturales. He propuesto abordar esto a través de lo que llamo un “estudio de caso extendido multi-escalar” de la construcción social de un problema y sus soluciones. Una aproximación innovativa que esclarecen los múltiples procesos locales y globales intrínsecos al fenómeno, cuyo punto de partida ha sido una etnografía urbana de una ciudad en el norte de Cataluña. He analizado la transformación simultáneamente local y global de las migraciones y de las sociedades, conectando a los procesos locales de producción de espacio y la creación de lugar con los procesos de migración, crisis económica y transformación social, para finalmente analizar las respuestas de las asociaciones, ONGs y grupos sociales a estos cambios. Los conflictos sociales son aquí concebidos como una herramienta analítica favorable que permite un entendimiento más profundo de la compleja transformación social que la migración, como fenómeno, es parte de, pero también afectado por, a la vez que lo impulsa y articula culturalmente. Me he enfocado particularmente en la interacción entre movilidad y asentamiento, a través de un lente geográfico-histórico, y en los procesos socio-culturales a diferentes escalas de las cuales forman parte y en las cuales juegan un rol importante. Así como el modo en el cual tienen un impacto local y global a través de los vectores de producción y reproducción.

The main aim of the thesis has been to scrutinise the relations between cultural diversity and social conflicts, and to consider why some social conflicts are said to be inherently cultural. I have proposed to assess this through what I call an ‘multi-scalar extended case study’ of the social construction of a problem and its solutions. An innovative approach that sheds light on the multiple localglobal processes inherent to the phenomenon starting from an urban ethnography of a small town in Northern Catalonia. I have analysed the simultaneously localglobal transformation of migration and societies, connecting the local processes of production of space and place-making with the larger processes of migration, economic crisis and social transformation, and finally, the responses to these changes from the institutions, NGOs and social groupings. Social conflicts are here conceived of as a favourable analytical tool which allows for a deeper understanding of the complex social transformation that migration as a phenomenon is part of but also affected by, impulses and articulates culturally. I have focused particularly on the interaction between mobility and settlement, through a geographical-historical lens, and the socio-cultural processes at different scales that these are part of and play an important role in, as well as the way that they impact locally and globally, through the vectors of production and reproduction.