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a paradox?

I thought I’d make my first contribution to Bi2.0 by asking a question.  After reading Pedro’s very interesting post about immigrants from Spain to the Basque region and emigrants from the Basque region to the new world, I was left wondering how the same region could be both an importer and an exporter of migrant labor during broadly the same historical period.  Isn’t this pretty unusual?  Have other European regions been both magnets for immigrants from other areas while at the same time exporting large numbers of emigrants to far off places?  Most Basque immigrants to the new world left their homeland in search of economic opportunity, but it would seem that labor was in much demand in Basque industry.  What explains this social and economic paradox?

Pedro J. Oiarzabal

Pedro J. Oiarzabal was born and raised in Bilbao and has spent much of his life between the Basque Country, Ireland and the United States. He holds a PhD in Basque Studies-Political Science from the University of Nevada, Reno, a MPhil in Economics and Social Sciences from Queen's University of Belfast (N. Ireland), and BA in History from the University of Deusto (Bilbao). Currently, he is a PhD Researcher on Migration Studies at the Institute of Human Rights, University of Deusto. His research examines diaspora communities interaction with information and communication technologies, with particular emphasis on the Basque case. Among his publications are "La Identidad Vasca en el Mundo" (2005), "A Candle in the Night: Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, 1967-2007" (2007), "Gardeners of Identity: Basques in the San Francisco Bay Area" (2009), "Diasporas in the New Media Age: Identity, Politics, and Community" (2010), "Knowledge Communities" (2011), "Migration and the Internet: Social Networking and Diasporas" (JEMS, Vol. 38, No. 9, 2012), and the oral history video "Fragments of Our Lives" (2012, http://youtu.be/p5kfNVpJuwY).

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  • Can you provide the URL for the blog posting that you're referring to? If it's in Spanish, I hope to find some way to translate it. This is the first time I've heard of this site. Thanks.

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Pedro J. Oiarzabal
Tags: Diaspora

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