The transformation and (re)production of culture in an ethnic Romanian Community in Spain

This Master’s thesis is an ethnographic study that focuses on Romanian transnational migrant families. It explores, from an anthropological perspective the transformations that have happened in the lives of the Romanian migrants in Spain, on how the context of migration influences people’s lives and on how the changes are perceived by the migrants. The fieldwork was conducted in 2014 in a Romanian Community situated in a small village near Roquetas del Mar, Almeria, in the Southern part of Spain. The collected material consists of 15 interviews, participant observation diary and a collection of photos and videos. The data was analyzed using micro-interpretive social constructionism. Through thematic analysis, three important changes were identified. The first theme concentrates on the changes that have happened in the perception of family and family life. Hence, the research examines how the concept of family has changed and how the family has been constructed in the migration context. The second theme explores the experiences of the migrants from a human security perspective. The manner in which migrants perceive their human security is reflected in their daily discourse and it has a significant influence on their behaviour. The third theme of this study focuses on the religious transformation. The aim of this section is to investigate how the everyday religion has been changing in the migration context and how people have been making sense of their religious experiences. This study is unable to encompass the entire complexity of the changes that have happened in the lives of the Romanian migrants. However, it sheds a new light on specific changes that are important for the migrants. Since this is a qualitative based research that draws on a limited number of participants, it is impossible to generalize the results. Nevertheless, this research provides new insights into subjects that previous studies have not dealt with in much detail