Everyday borders: Cross-border domestic workers in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla

Project description

Every day, over 2,100 women cross the border between Morocco and Spain to work in the domestic sector in the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, an extremely feminised, informal, and invisibilised sector. Representing over 90% of domestic workers in the area, their labour meets a significant demand, yet they face socio-cultural barriers that render them both essential and marginalised. Strict regulations limit their crossings to daylight hours and prohibit access to the Spanish mainland. Nonetheless, by entering Spanish neighbourhoods and households, Moroccan women disrupt notions of "whiteness" and "Europeanness" in the enclaves, challenging the persistent segregation rooted in colonialism.

The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed the frontier's selective permeability, as many workers found themselves stranded on both sides of the border without any social security protection. This extreme precariousness led some of these women to join social movements demanding better conditions for cross-border workers.

This research, anchored in border studies, employs a decolonial lens to:

1. explore the bordering processes that cross-border women experience in their daily lives
2. examine how these processes are shaped by their intersecting identities (gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, etc.)
3. investigate how these shared experiences can lead to the creation of a social movement.

To this end, the study utilises an ethnographic approach, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews with both Moroccan domestic workers and Spanish residents of the enclaves. This research contributes to the studies of everyday bordering and migrant domestic work. By focusing on the daily experiences of Moroccan cross-border women in an extremely precarious borderland, the thesis unravels the intersection of colonial legacies and various social categories in everyday bordering processes.