Recentemente tive de fazer um trabalho para uma das minhas cadeiras na universidade e achei opurtuno colocalo aqui. :lol:



This report is intended to give an anthropological view, and at same time make a summary on the text that was given to me on the English class by Professor Alice Trindade. The work has as base a delicate subject, the illegal immigration from Africa to Europe, specifically Spain.
As we know, the illegal immigration from Africa it is an issue that concerns both the Spanish Government, the European Union and also the own Spanish population, so I wondered how much the anthropologists should participate in immigration issues, providing greater information and by describing the effects that immigration policies have in this specific case, even knowing that it is always difficult to translate anthropological work into publicly accessible statements.

The case that was brought to us consisted in an interview carried out by Cécile Chambraud to the Guardian Weekly. The subject consisted in the story of two persons, Mady Tounkara and Yaouba Kone, both immigrants from Mali trying to reach Europe.The main reasons? During my research, I have noticed that a good part of Mali's problems come from the lack of investment in the country during French colonial times and corrupt governments after independence, also the geographic localization, where two-thirds of the country is desert or semi-desert. Mali is today one of the contemporary world's poorest countries, 80% of the population are mostly subsistence farmers, growing just enough for their own needs,5% of the population is nomadic and the only thing that gives some hope to the future is the gold mining.

In this article I had the chance to follow this two immigrants in their quest, an odyssey of five years where the objective was to get enough money to travel to Spain, where the entrance door would be the Canary Islands. This trips are done in very dangerous conditions, using rudimentary boats, always full with other illegal immigrants. Most part of this attempts end up in death or with the intervention of the Spanish Coastguard, then they are taken to Spanish land for a first intervention that is done by the Red Cross. The process of deportation can be very fast, but since they have no documents the probabilities of staying in Spain are huge, but they will stay locked up at least for 40 days until the deportation order arrives or another solution appears. The problem is how they are going to survive and start their lifes in such conditions, and in my opinion the more concerning is that Spain faces a real challenge in the Canary Islands, but locking people up under such appalling conditions is not the solution. Immigration controls have to go hand-in-hand with protections for migrants basic rights.

As an reporter and an a anthropologist, I consider that immigration can be understand as a "total process, a concept that was created by Abdelmalek Sayad, that consists in the way how people should see immigration, in this case immigration should be seen first, by considering the reasons that make people immigrate, and second, by the methods of social insertion of the immigrants in the target country.

To conclude, for me it is shocking to know that the European Union has used the Canary Islands tragedy (at least 220 people lost their life, including 64 missing) to create a new border patrol. In my opinion the end of the political and economical lobbys would put an end on the business interests, who simply want the continued supply of cheap labor. The immigrants became a work force, and it constitutes a problem for the country that explores this type of situation, the necessity of the working market it's circumstantial, the immigrant is seen as provisory member of society, even if he stays more then 30 years in the country. They will always be "foreigners". The process of adaptation is still weak, and needs a quick improvement in order to be side by side with the modern progress of nowadays.