Introduction: «You think you’ve left behind zombies». Youth Emigration: Adventure or Exile?

Abstract

One of the side-effects of the financial crisis that started in 2008 has been youth emigration abroad, especially to Europe. The cultural narratives around the phenomenon are ambiguous: on one side it is seen as an attractive adventure (promoted by some politicians and businessmen), while on the other it is seen as a forced exile (denounced by social movements and youth organisations). Although this migration process is reminiscent of a previous massive emigration wave —which took place in the 50s and 60s— its character has changed: these are not rural or working class young people with low educational capital but young urban mesocracy often with very high levels of education. Mobility and communication strategies have also changed: the train, the letters and the one-way journeys have been replaced by low-cost flights, Skype and pendular journeys. In any case, this process is inscribed in the dynamics of transnational intra- and extra- European juvenile mobility, and accompanies the «anthropological journey» from the study of the «other» (young people in transit from the Global South to Spain) to the study of «us» (our own young people in transit to the global North). The article introduces texts for this edition on Emerging Themes and aims to analyse the youth emigration process as a «total social fact» (Marcel Mauss), setting up a dialogue between the economic, family, political and ideological resources of Spanish society, in the context of the current economic crisis and its aim for social renewal.