A team of researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in partnership with researchers from other universities in Spain, Romania, Germany, Switzerland and the US, have started a research project that looks at the Romanian diaspora in Spain.

Starting from the example of the Romanian community, the ORBITS: The Role of Social Transnational Fields in the Emergence, Maintenance and Decay of Ethnic and Demographic Enclaves​ project aims to explore how European citizens look for better opportunities through inter-community mobility.

Over 20 million European citizens currently live outside their birth country. The Romanian community in Spain has evolved from insignificant before the year 2000 to being one of the largest at present.

The Romanian migrants are not spread uniformly throughout the country but concentrate in certain areas, which has led to the formation of “demographic enclaves.”

The research will look at two demographic enclaves positioned in two different parts of the country: Castellón de la Plana, on the eastern coast of Spain, and Roquetas de Mar, in the south of the country.

The Romanian community in Castellón de la Plana emerged in response to the demand for workers in the construction and ceramics industry, while that one in Roquetas de Mar to the demand for agriculture workers. The research will also entail field work in Romania, in the regions of Dâmbovița and Bistrița-Năsăud, where many of the Romanians living in these two Spain communities originate.

Among the topics investigated will be the reasons for which Romanians leave the country, the factors that influence their decision to come back, the way migration is produced through family, friends and acquaintances networks, and the way Romanian migrants communicate and exchange resources through migration networks.

The ORBITS Project is financed by the Spanish government through the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness Minister. It will be last until 2020.

Almost 3 million Romanians were living in other EU states in 2015, some 660,000 of whom were estimated to live in Spain.

A Spanish-language description of the project is available here.

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editor@romania-insider.com