Migration and Social Mobility in Argentina: macro and micro perspectives.

CEVA, MARIELA

Lisboa, Portugal

Congreso; European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC); 2008

(ESSHC)

In the Argentine case many studies related to social mobility and migration have changed in the last decades and this has implied not only the use of new sources but also other views and concepts. This new approach to the migratory process lets us perceive certain aspects of the social process that were not detected because of the added data, as well as prescribe a new interpretative hypothesis. In this sense, many works contemplated the notion of migratory chain, analyzing different aspects related to migration, such as the settlement records, their participation in associations or marital affairs and their labor access, as well as points related to social mobility. The results coming from these studies questioned some topics related to the first ones in different countries, such as the one of social mobility, the ways of labor insertion, the relation between leadership and religion, and this one with political participation. In this context is necessary to re- establish the dialogue between the macro and micro perspective. In this case, the article aims to re-think about the occupational mobility in recent industrialization context and within the contemporary immigration framework in Argentina. Thus, we have decided to look into the argentinian census, especially in the “Cedulas censales” de 1895 but using the HISCO. Those “cedulas censales” were vital for the study of migrations. They contained valuable information, although it was obviously necessary to treat them carefully because of the type of omissions or changes that they might have. These ones provided data which were quite interesting as regards the nation of birth, the age, the occupation, the grade of education, the name of wives and children’s. The research reconstructs how immigrants come to be part of the labour market in Argentina between XIX Century and half of XX Century and What happens with socio occupational mobility of the immigrants manual labour?