THE FRONTIERS OF BELONGING: CATALAN NATIONALISTS AND IMMIGRATION IN THE NINETEEN-SIXTIES

Abstract

This paper seeks to reflect on the concept of the frontier, applying it to an analysis of people’s membership in a national community. Specifically, the intention is to trace a broad debate sparked among Catalan intellectuals in the nineteen-sixties by the massive influx of immigrants from other areas of Spain, a phenomenon that had the potential to cause the disappearance of an autochthonous culture being profoundly persecuted by the Francoist regime. Amid this set of circumstances, approaches were developed that transcended their time and left a complex legacy that has persisted to the present day. To analyse
the use of the concept of a cultural frontier between the migratory flows of a population from the same State, the paper draws on contributions from the historical sciences and anthropology to conduct a thoughtprovoking case study of the Catalan situation.