During the last forty years successive economic, social and financial crises, as well as the neo-liberal reforms undertaken in the country, have considerably undermined the Argentinean welfare state, bearing a strong pauperization of the population. In this context, part of Argentinean middle classes, which embody collective and individual national aspirations, has bet on migration to Europe, particularly to Spain, breaking away from a drop in status (downgrading). This study builds on a qualitative research and a field work carried out between 2009 and 2010 in Argentina, Spain and France, where the projects and trajectories of members of three fractions of the Argentinean middle classes were approached in order to understand what is at stake in this mobility, both geographic and social, as well as its limits. To do this, we will first analyze the common frameworks of the collective experience known as “éxodo del corralito”, and secondly, the migratory logic differentiated according to the type of trajectory and to the attributes of each class fraction, on the other.
Keywords
- middle class
- crisis of welfare states
- downgrading
- European nationality
- Argentinean migration