From immigration to “diversity”: A reflection on terms, categories and problems of analysis

A decade of massive and highly accelerated immigration from a wide range of geographic origins has lent the Spanish population a new “diversity”. An “ethnic” sense of this term, rooted in English-speaking spheres, has been gaining increasing ground in social scientists’ analyses of immigration in Europe and Spain. Terms and categories also give rise to problems of analysis and the ways to approach them. Taking as references recent work on the territorial distribution of immigration in Spain, especially in urban and metropolitan areas, this article proposes a discussion of approaches, designations and classifications based and focused on a specific type of population “difference”: their criteria, modus operandi and options, as well as some of their implications. The social perceptions of migrations (immigration and emigration), as well as their contexts and conditions, are indispensable components of the debate.