The anti-racist space of Gironès: a community, collaborative and interdisciplinary initiative to respond to racism

Abstract

Salt has one of the highest rates of foreign residents in Catalonia and some districts of Girona have similar percentages. For years there is concern about the development of racism: spreading rumors, prejudices and forms of more or less banal racism, discrimination in the public sphere or by institutions, promotion of political platforms which based its electoral offer on the rejection of foreigners.
This article describes the process by which this concern has curdled in a platform that aims to identify and combat racism taking place in both municipalities is analyzed. The interest of the initiative lies in the way it has taken (it is an initiative which houses a heterogeneous mosaic of viewpoints, capabilities and skills that are challenging, but they are also its greatest potential: Next to immigrants that bring social bonds and accounts of situations, there are experts in law, third sector organizations or university teachers and students who contribute to social diagnosis); and it is also interesting because of the variety of initiatives being developed (social activism, training activities and initiatives for the diagnosis of social reality).
A group of students of Social Education has contributed to this diagnosis with their final degree works, based on interviews with technicians from the social scope of and immigrant population. These interviews were conducted in order to gather experiences of racism and discrimination experienced or known by those people.
The article describes the process of constitution and the line of action of the Espai Antiracista and shows to what extent the interviews in order to identify the forms and spaces of racism confirm their initial diagnosis and can help set priorities and define action strategies.