Beatriz Moraes Vidal

Research Title

The Paradiplomatic Relations between La Línea de la Concepción and the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.

More about Beatriz

Academic Background

• MPhil/PhD Human Geography, University College London. 2020 – Present.
• Doctoral Thesis: The Paradiplomatic Relations between La Línea de la Concepción and the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.
• BA Cultural Sciences and Cultural Dissemination, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (1st Class Honours). 2016-2020.
• BA Thesis: The Migratory Inflow in Present-Day Spain.

Research Interests

This project aims to study the paradiplomatic relations conducted across the Spain-Gibraltar frontier. However, where most Anglophone studies are centred on Gibraltar, this analysis will be focused on La Línea de la Concepción, responding to the lack of research from the Spanish point of view.

Both neighbouring territories have shared a history of controversial political and economic relations and with the foreseen Brexit, rejected by the immense majority of its inhabitants, Gibraltar’s situation has yet to be defined. At the same time, nationalist movements gain strength and vindicate Spanish sovereignty over the Rock (rejected by Gibraltarians twice), and the newly elected municipal government proclaims a form of stateless nationalism in which La Línea would be constituted as an Autonomous City (as Ceuta and Melilla), thus changing the paradiplomacy with the exclave