Summary

• The research was carried out in Andalusia on the integration processes of immigrant collectives at local level on a comparative perspective between the two case studies: Seville as administrative capital of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia and El Ejido as municipality of the Poniente district, in Almeria province, that is configured as an agro-industrial district. • Our study highlights the immigrants ’ difficulties in relation with their labour integration and how the panorama of local economic crisis triggered by the context of international financial crisis is affecting them. • We analysed the social processes related to social integration from a perspective that goes beyond the specific situations of racism, xenophobic attitudes and discriminatory practices, but understanding such processes as a set of representations of the otherness that contribute to the ‘other’s ’ minorisation, as a thinking style and collective practice of power expressed in the various spheres of social interaction. Another objective of our study is the detection of action protocols and protection mechanisms when facing situations of discrimination, in order to analyse the role of the social organizations in situations of structural vulnerability. • We analysed the labour integration policy of the Junta de Andalucía and the social intervention policy in excluded environments. We also highlight the lack of coordination between these two policies and also between their action mechanisms. The data show the low impact of these policies after a decade of regional immigration policy. • The social processes aiming at the development of activities towards employment, work and income search within the collective networks that are mos