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Objectives

EURO_CITI provides an innovative and interdisciplinary research on the different forms of political participation of European senior migrants within the most important regional setting – the Spanish Mediterranean cost – discussing the practice of European citizenship both from conceptual and empirical frameworks.

The general objective of EURO_CITI is to study the conditions and expressions, which lead towards and guide the political participation, involvement and citizenship practice of mainly retired foreign European residents who live in Spain. Being a topic of broader conceptual and empirical interest, the following objectives can be specified:

• Development of a theoretical and conceptual frame, which responds to the daily practice of European citizenship in a highly transnational environment, as observed in Southern Spain. The framework will include the integration of interdisciplinary conceptual ideas, which range from political theory (e.g. discussion of globalization and citizenship), cultural studies and cultural theory (e.g. performative acts of politics, identity politics, hybridity) sociological approaches (e.g. the role and meaning of societal practice and representation) and recent theory debates in Human Geography (e.g. the meaning of space and place in a transnational world).
• Understanding of individual, societal and legal constraints:
  In order to understand the outcomes of citizenship practice and awareness to political participation of foreigners in Southern Spain, both individual as social legal rights entitlements inscribed in public policies should be deeply discussed and analysed at different geographical scales. Rules that range from the local up to the European sphere, are detected as a key factor for the social mobilization and political participation of senior residents and movers in Spain, especially as an important gap between formal social and political rights granted to foreigners in Spain and the individual recognition of these rights can be observed.
• Empirical knowledge production about political involvement of foreigners:
  The lack of empirical data concerning formal and informal political and social involvement of foreign residents in Spain will be tackled by first-hand data collection. The analysis of recent processes of political participation will provide an important advance of the state-of-the-art.
• Identification and evaluation of best-case and worst-case situations:
  The identification of symbolic boundaries and practical problems due to the political involvement of foreign EU residents are an important step towards the evaluation of European citizenship practices in the Spanish target regions. Institutional and individual responses regarding the political participation will be evaluated. Typification and in depth-studies of administrative transformation due to political participation of foreigners will be provided. In addition to practical evaluation, empirical data will also be used to resettle and advance the theoretical debate about European citizenship practice in transnational environments.
• Dissemination and evolution of the scenario:
  Political participation that is observed in Spanish municipalities can be evaluated as a future scenario for many coastal regions throughout the EU, where senior migrants move to. Importance should therefore be given to develop possible scenarios for other European regions and disseminate the gathered knowledge both within the scientific community as to important political actors on different geographical scales.

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