From the building of walls against potential asylum seekers to the rise of far-right parties, the restriction of foreign nationals' social rights, the imposition of obstacles to naturalisation and the selective prohibition of minority practices, the institutionalisation of racism is undermining the fundamental principles of conviviality in European societies. In keeping with its mission of legal-political evaluation and criticism, the MULTIHURI team organises its II Seminar series on racism, multi-discrimination and human rights, going on until the spring of 2017. Once a month, various academic and civil society experts meet at Valencia University's Faculty of Social Sciences to identify the challenges surrounding racist discriminations and propound ways of tackling them effectively and fairly. All sessions are open to the public and leave time for a debate among all those attending.

On 12 December, Mª Ángeles Cea D'Ancona, professor of Sociology at the Complutense University in Madrid (UCM), will deliver a lecture on the current state of racism and xenophobia in Spain. Her presentation will provide a broad overview of the evolution of attitudes toward immigration in general and ethnic minorities in particular, based on the longitudinal survey data collected by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) from 1991 to the present (since 2007, for the Spanish Observatory of Racism and Xenophobia – OBERAXE). This will be combined with qualitative material collected in the framework of national and European research projects, which will help identify the factors shaping the acceptance and rejection of immigrants in the light of consolidated theoretical approaches to racism and xenophobia.

Mª Ángeles Cea is director of the UCM Department of Sociology and certified as full professor since 2015. She is one of Spain’s leading experts in the methodology of social research and she has been responsible, together with Miguel S. Valles, for the annual report on the evolution of racism and xenophobia in Spain edited by OBERAXE. Her publications include the books La justicia de menores en España (CIS, Monografía 127, 1992); Metodología cuantitativa (Síntesis, 1996); Análisis multivariable (Síntesis, 2002); La activación de la xenofobia en España (CIS/Siglo XXI, Monografía 210, 2004); Métodos de encuesta (Síntesis, 2004); La deriva del cambio familiar (CIS, Monografía 241, 2007); Inmigración, racismo y xenofobia en la España del nuevo contexto europeo (OBERAXE, 2007); Fundamentos y aplicaciones en metodología cuantitativa (Síntesis, 2012). Co-authored with M.S. Valles: Las encuestas sobre inmigración en España y Europa (OPI, 1999); Evolución del racismo y la xenofobia en España [informes anuales de 2008-2015] (OBERAXE); Xenofobias y Xenofilias en clave biográfica (Siglo XXI, 2010); Inmigración: filias y fobias en tiempos de crisis (Biblioteca Nueva, 2013); Discriminación múltiple (Dextra, 2016), among others. On survey methodology she has written “La senda tortuosa de la calidad de la encuesta” (2005, REIS, 111: 75-103); “La compleja detección del racismo y la xenofobia a través de encuesta” (2009, REIS, 125: 13-45); “Measuring xenophobia: social desirability and survey mode effects” (2014, Migration Studies, 2 (2) 255-280); “Measuring multiple discrimination via survey methodology” (2016, Social Science Research). Main investigator of projects MEXEES I (SEJ2005-00568), MEXEES II (CSO2009-07295), MEDIM I (CSO2012-36127), MEDIM II (CSO2016-75946-R) and Living Together (JLS/FRC/2007), among others.

For all the details on this seminar and subsequent ones, please see the poster below.