Berta Alvarez-Miranda

Berta Álvarez-Miranda is Professor of Sociology at Madrid's Complutense University. She was formerly Director of Research at the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), Spain's official opinion polling department. Her research in the field of migration includes both quantitative and qualitative work. She has surveyed the attitudes of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries as part of a comparative study of European cities, and has advised the Spanish and Moroccan governments on how to measure perceptions of migrants and discrimination among the general population. Qualitative sociological methods and ethnographic work have enabled her to better understand identity processes and their mobilization among migrants and their descendants in Spanish cities, as well as perceptions among the next of kin of emigrants in Morocco, with particular attention to religious factors.

The project

Title: Qualify Unification in Europe for Shifting Trust (QUEST): a comparative research on Muslims responses to the politics of threat in France, UK, Spain and Norway,

Qualify Unification in Europe for Shifting Trust (QUEST) is a cooperative European project coordinated by Alexandra Poli (CEMS) and funded by the program New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe (Norface). It offers an ethnographic account of the shifting identities and representations of European Muslims in a context increasingly characterized by a politics of threat. Moving from the national public debates to the articulation of attitudes and engagements at the city level, it seeks participatory methods in developing and devolving its results. The first work package of QUEST consisted in a description of the discursive atmosphere generated in national public debates about Muslims in the four case studies (France, Norway, UK and Spain). Based on a review of academic literature and the press, the sociogenesis of the category Muslim, and the cultural tropes it became linked to along its development were analysed. For the second work package, each team conducted ethnographic research at the city level (Paris, Nice, Oslo, Birmingham, Madrid and Ceuta), focusing on individual and collective discourses, practices and strategies in re-elaborating what it means to be "Muslim" in a polarizing Europe. The third work
package aims to devolve our interpretation of European Muslims' responses to civil society groups, by engaging them in several typyes of workshops. By focusing on new forms of engagement and dialogue in collaboration with Muslim civil society actors, the project seeks to promote more inclusive societies in a period of growing anxiety and mistrust.

Hosting institution: Centre d'Études des Mouvements Sociaux (CEMS) - EHESS

Selective Bibliography

• Álvarez-Miranda, B. et Brey, E. 2023. “Reframing Coercive Engineered Migration theory: Ceuta and the Western Sahara”, Mediterranean Politics (en presse avec DOI 10.1080/13629395.2023.2293417)
• Álvarez-Miranda, B. 2019. “La prelación de la inmigración como problema del país”, Panorama Social 30: 145-158.
• Álvarez-Miranda, B. 2012. “Confianza generalizada e inmigración: evidencia cualitativa del caso español”, Revista Española de Sociología, 17: 119-132
• Álvarez-Miranda, B. 2011. "In Work Poverty among immigrants", Fraser, N., Gutierrez, R. and Peña-Casas, R. (eds.) Working Poverty in Europe: A Comparative Approach, Londres et New York: Palgrave Macmillan
• Álvarez-Miranda, B. 2009. “Las identidades nacionales y transnacionales de los inmigrantes musulmanes en Europa”, Revista del Ministerio de Trabajo e Inmigración, 80: 133-150
• Álvarez-Miranda, B. 2009. “La acomodación del culto islámico en España. Comparación con Gran Bretaña, Alemania y Francia”, Zapata-Barrero, R. (ed.) Políticas de gobernabilidad de la inmigración en España. Barcelone: Ariel