Pakistani immigrants in Valenciafocus on the integration process considering the socio-religious-cultural diversity of the ethnic groups in question and the possible upcoming tensions shaping the peaces of future generations

Resumen

Pakistani immigrants have been present in the city of Valencia for several years. They form a partially hidden community within the society. It makes research about their integration process more complex. Wolfgang Dietrich's ECM method is applied to complement the Socio-demographic survey based on primary and secondary data. Open and hidden tensions around their integration are analysed within the framework of Peace Studies. Research points taken into account include religion as a cohesive force, as source of identity, and bridge between cultures and as a tool to create enemy pictures through the idea of otherness. Language boundaries along with cultural symbols play important role in integration. Whether the Pakistani community is discriminated on basis of its language, religion, dress code or other visible signs of identity in the city of Valencia is shown in the questionnaires and interviews carried out among the residents of the city. The main research questions include the following topics: Do the Valencian and Pakistani communities know each other or do they share the city without real contact? Are Pakistani immigrants labelled after images seen in mass media and identified with people who show certain similarities with them? Historical background of Pakistani immigrants is essential in order to understand who they are, how they arrived in Valencia, what are their goals and motivations? What is the role of biradari network during the course of their migration and integration? Some of these questions can be researched from secondary data, some come to the surface during the survey, but the underlying forces and the unspoken emotions of the individuals of this peaceful community could have stayed unnoticed without the ECM method. The Valencian case is briefly contrasted with those of Bradford and the Barcelona highlighting similarities and differences. Finally, the theoretical framework based on the principles of Peace Studies and the case studies with combined research methods provide a new approach to a topic whose importance is increasing with the growing number of Pakistani immigrants in the city.