The relationship between left-behindness and islandness is intricate and multifaceted. Small and peripheral islands are particularly susceptible to environmental challenges and economic downturns due to their limited resources for survival, which have historically shaped them as left-behind areas. However, while islands have long been viewed as places of departure, they also function as hubs for migrants, asylum seekers, tourists, and returnees, i.e., as spaces collectively modelled by human mobility. Therefore, islands are both peripheral and interconnected spaces, with relationality forming the core of islandness. The “relational isolation” is exemplified by the case of El Hierro in the Canary Islands, where human mobility may contribute to the mitigation of left-behindness. This analytical perspective is explored using statistical data that elucidates trends in human mobility, complemented by interviews with both migrants and stayers. These qualitative accounts offer critical insights into the migratory experience and its complex relationship with islandness.
Rural Sayago (Zamora, Spain), on the Portuguese border, exemplifies long-term depopulation and ageing processes in Southern Europe. This study examines the tourism-migration nexus, asking how tourism development influences the arrival, settlement and economic incorporation of internal and international immigrants. We combine qualitative fieldwork from two projects—semi-structured interviews with migrant entrepreneurs in accommodation, hospitality and agritourism—with analysis of official demographic data. Results show that tourism-related activities enable livelihood diversification and self-employment that support newcomer settlement, especially internal in-migrants with inherited property and lifestyle international immigrants. Newcomers act as innovators, expanding rural accommodation and experience-based offers. However, seasonality, thin markets and limited services constrain broader demographic recovery. We conclude that rural tourism can stabilise population locally by enabling immigrant settlement, but it requires place-based policies that strengthen everyday infrastructures and trans-border coordination.
In Portugal, rural areas have increasingly become immigrant destinations, and attracting them forms part of rural revitalisation strategies. However, these arrivals challenge municipalities with limited resources and capacity. Drawing on a qualitative case study in a municipality located in the Lower Alentejo region in southern Portugal, characterised by demographic decline and growing dependence on migrant agricultural labour, this article analyses frontline professionals’ practices in immigrant reception and integration in a rural context. Within street-level bureaucracy and bordering practices, the analysis employs four analytical dimensions: structural scarcity and labour precarity of immigrants, formal and informal mechanisms, stereotypical representations, and migration-related tensions. The findings show how resource scarcity, political neglect, and tensions surrounding immigration reconfigure discretion and moral agency, requiring strategies beyond formal frameworks. This exposes tensions between a temporary-labour immigration model and structures designed for permanent population, where professionals perform ambivalent roles, facilitating or constraining access to services and rights.
Starting from the theoretical and research findings developed within the Horizon Europe Re-Place Project, this paper analyses the specificity of female migratory pathways in left-behind areas. It emphasizes the importance of a gender-sensitive perspective in restoring a “sense of place” in regions often overlooked by public policies. Focusing on national and international mobility dynamics in specific Italian areas—especially in the post-pandemic context—the research highlights women as central protagonists. While affective and subjective dimensions shape all migratory pathways, female mobility presents a particular complexity where intimate motivations are deeply intertwined with economic and systemic factors. This complexity is compounded by the systemic disadvantages and exclusions faced by women—issues that have worsened since the pandemic, despite a recovery in mobility. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, the study combines extensive data from leading research with key players and individuals. Through in-depth interviews, it investigates how gender functions as a social structure and examines both the amplification of inequalities and the emergence of potential paradigm shifts. Particular attention is given to how women’s transformative roles in small municipalities foster plural, community-oriented contexts, combat gender gaps, and contribute to territorial regeneration.
This article examines migrant workers’ experiences with the German welfare state, drawing on three empirical studies conducted in Berlin (2014-2021) with rejected third-country asylum seekers and Southern and Eastern European Union citizens. It highlights how state bureaucracies implement selective access to welfare through everyday practices conceptualised as “bureaucratic violence” (Graeber, 2012), which are the product of interaction between legislative frameworks, their implementation by frontline officials, and legitimising discourses. Despite migrants’ diverse legal statuses, common patterns in their interactions with the public administration are identified through four analytical dimensions—“administrative temporality,” “discretionary micro-power,” “moral economy of deservingness,” and “linguistic and racialised bordering practices”—which are traced comparatively across three distinct migrant groups within the same national welfare system. The analysis reveals how bureaucratic practices shape power relations between local authorities and migrants, producing structural disadvantages and transnational vulnerabilities. Institutions such as the Jobcenter and the Foreigners’ Office (Ausländerbehörde) are understood as key sites where neoliberal border and welfare regimes filter access to rights and social participation.
