The  Conectando mundos  edition for the 2009-2010 academic year is focused on the migration and development of people from a human perspective and a conception of global citizenship. It deals with the causes and consequences of the migration process in people’s lives and their environment, considering what attitudes and commitments must be taken on – both at a personal and a collective level- to contribute to the creation of an open and diverse society based on values of solidarity and mutual respect among people of different origins.

In Argentina, the ‘golondrinas’ (or swallows) are seasonal workers who, dreaming of a better life, fly towards it every summer to work in the harvest fields. Migration is a phenomenon as long as history itself. Currently, there is virtually no country beyond the reach of a migration circuit and a growing number of countries are becoming countries of origin, transit and destination of migrations.

We know that the living conditions of people in different places around the world are extremely different. While a vast majority of the world’s population struggles to survive, the other struggles to maintain its privileges, which have been achieved at the expense of other human beings. This logic is the reason behind the erection of invisible frontiers which deny a decent life to people and do not allow them to satisfy their basic needs. Thus, migrations are a logical consequence of this illogical and unjust social and economic model governing the world in which we are living.

But its lack of logic and fairness runs even deeper. We open our frontiers more and more for the free movement of economic goods and capital, while at the same time, we close them for the free movement of people. And not only do we close frontiers (and make them more impenetrable by means of walls), we also close minds: through clichés and prejudices – supported by the mass media which fosters the fear of the ‘different’ and the construction of the ‘different’ as an enemy, using the conception of identity as something unique and exclusive, as well as through cultural homogenization.

Against all this, we want to work on the creation of a common space of mutual respect and enrichment, a space of responsibilities and rights, rapprochement and acceptance, interculturality, richness of “the difference” and diversity.

This is why we invite participants of Conectando mundos to fly like the swallows, to reflect on migration processes and on how they are connected to development, collecting all the points of view with which we can contribute from the different countries.

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