Jose Moya, “Cousins and Strangers.” by K.

Jose Moya’s impressive and meticulous analysis of Spanish immigrants to Buenos Aires offers some interesting insights not only into the subject matter but also into the importance of including both macro- and micro-level factors in a study of migration, and of utilizing both quantitative and qualitative sources to paint a more detailed picture of those factors. In particular, I appreciated Moya’s insight about the discovery of patterns in what might be construed as “limitless variety”, preferring to see this as the “intellectual challenge of finite diversity” (393). I think this is an important point, because at times historical diversity does seem to present the “epistemological quagmire” that Moya refuses to fall into, and his insistence that detailed and rigorous analysis can make some sense of that diversity offers a way out of that quagmire.
On the other hand, I was a bit less impressed by the way Moya juxtaposed quantitative and qualitative sources. While I generally agree that using both types of sources can only help create a richer and more nuanced picture of the past, I think that Moya over-emphasizes the dangers in using qualitative sources. For example, in his account of the differences between the perceptions of Basques and Andalusions, Moya argues that the views of these groups presented in the popular press suggest that Basques were seen more favourably as hard workers, a view which contradicts their actual employment situations (232-3). I think the “gross discrepancy” between Moya’s findings on employment and the qualitative evidence result more from a rather uninspired reading of the qualitative sources than from some inherently deceptive trait within those sources. More specifically, some of the evidence Moya cites of the auspicious view of Basques actually coincides with the type of jobs they tended to take. That is, Basques many have taken more low-paid menial jobs, but this does not actually contradict the way they were valorized as “muscular and gigantic pioneers, of erect torsos and Herculean brazos who welcome the hard and stimulating endeavours of our grasslands” (q.f. 233). I don’t want to overstate the point, but I think the disagreement Moya finds between the two types of sources is perhaps not as great as he imagines. Moreover, this disagreement may in fact result from the eight-category hierarchy of employment he creates to analyze upward mobility, without interrogating the different values that may have been placed on different types of employment, regardless of whether or not they were “menial” or “professional.” I suspect that some kind of analysis of gendered notions of work, of the valorization of “masculine” physical labour would have been useful here.
Overall, I think the issue outlined above speaks to a larger problem with Moya’s partial resistance to cultural history. While espousing a commitment to “sociocultural history” as an “inquiry into people’s real lived experiences” (405), I think the separation of the “cultural-cognitive dimensions” from the rest of the analysis creates an artificial separation in how people actually experience the world (332). I have difficulty seeing how “perceptions, attitudes, and reputations” can be divorced from the more material side of experience.

Tags: migration