We hereby aim at comparing the beliefs and the existing expectations between small-settled growers and their neighbours, who either purchased or inherited small-properties, by taking into account that the settling process only gets completed when there is an effective integration between settlers and the community. Five-two settlers and 53 small-property owners took part in focus groups and individual interviews were carried out concerning the history of their community, expectations and so on. The results showed that settlers describes their neighbours as non-fighting-for-life disorganized people, while small-property owners see settlers as government-benefited land invaders. Both of them describe the social contact with the exogenous group as negative due to the existing prejudices on both sides. We are there led to conclude that although settling aims at integrating its members with the community, such target is not attained. This points to the need for an integrating policy- so as to contemplate a homogeneous form of treatment for growers- no matter how they managed to own the land.
Settling; social identity; prejudice
