Immigrant-origin youth resilient strategies against social exclusion

ResiYouth is a research project based on a qualitative methodology, with a gender focus, interdisciplinary (anthropology, communication and social work) and applied orientation. It studies one of the aspects of the phenomenon of young sons and daughters of immigrants who, despite the difficulties in achieving full inclusion in the society where they have grown up, manage to overcome these situations and are socially integrated.

The main objective of the project is to identify and analyze the resilience developed by immigrant-origin youth living in Catalonia to face situations and processes of social exclusion

The results will contribute to the identification of their strengths as a way of recognising them as subjects with agency, and to the promotion of more holistic social intervention strategies  that incorporate a resilience paradigm as an element to build a more inclusive society, as opposed to the risk paradigm frequentelly used to study the migration and youth phenomenon and its demographic evolution. The aim is to learn from their coping process in order to promote and adapt it from projects and/or social intervention programmes with those who are currently living similar experiences.

The study is being carried out in Catalonia. The participants are young people of immigrant origin (born in Spain or who migrated when they were young) and social intervention professionals working with young people.

The data collection techniques used are: life histories, focus groups/workshops, and discourse analysis of the social networks of these young people; as well as interviews with key professionals working in social projects and/or programmes focused on youth.