New rural residents, territories for vital projects and the context of the crisis in Spain

Abstract

This chapter looks at the impact of the financial and economic crisis experienced in Spain during the last decade upon the reconfiguration of rural areas. With this aim, the chapter focuses on the impact on the relationship between new rural residents and the reshaping of rural territories. The chapter emphasises this impact through the analysis of three different, but closely related, dimensions. First, the way the crisis determined the arrival of newcomers. Second, the impact of this recession upon the local socio-economic dynamism of rural areas. Third, the unexpected elements that many new rural residents faced due to the context of the crisis, and which conditioned their experience of the new destination. Additionally, the chapter remarks on the necessity of understanding these migrations to the rural, by taking into consideration the life course and the phase of the family cycle of the migrants when the migration takes place. The discussion expounded in this chapter is based on the analysis of a series of qualitative interviews conducted with diverse sociological profiles of new rural residents. The interviews were undertaken in the context of two research projects which looked at different aspects of the relationship between new rural residents and their destination.