Open Access
Melilla, the border as social fabric of a city
Loading...
Files
Porous-Borders-Invisible-Boundaries-99-104.pdf (461.56 KB)
Full-text in Open Access
License
Cadmus Permanent Link
Full-text via DOI
ISSN
Issue Date
Type of Publication
Keyword(s)
LC Subject Heading
Other Topic(s)
EUI Research Cluster(s)
Initial version
Published version
Succeeding version
Preceding version
Published version part
Earlier different version
Initial format
Author(s)
Citation
Jayne HOWELL, Deborah R. ALTAMIRANO, Faedah M. TOTAH and Fethi KELES (eds), Porous borders, invisible boundaries? Ethnographic perspectives on the vicissitudes of contemporary migration. A publication of the Committee on Refugees and Immigrants, Society for Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2018, pp. 99-104
[EU BORDER CARE]
Cite
SAHRAOUI, Nina, Melilla, the border as social fabric of a city, in Jayne HOWELL, Deborah R. ALTAMIRANO, Faedah M. TOTAH and Fethi KELES (eds), Porous borders, invisible boundaries? Ethnographic perspectives on the vicissitudes of contemporary migration. A publication of the Committee on Refugees and Immigrants, Society for Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2018, pp. 99-104, [EU BORDER CARE] - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/62044
Abstract
This photo-essay results from three-months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Melilla, a Spanish enclave in the north of Africa, in the framework of the ERC-funded project EU Border Care. It explores how, beyond a highly polarized debate, migration forms the very social fabric of the city. Melilla’s economic fate is highly dependent on both regional border crossings and international migration. The ‘migration industry’ employs border guards and police forces but also social workers, translators, and healthcare professionals. Administratively, this border city can be characterized as a ‘central periphery’: while some sectors, such as health and education, depend more directly on the central Spanish government than it is the case for other regions, Melilla presents at the same time distinct tax and migration regimes. A regional migration regime facilitates mobility between the enclave and the neighboring Moroccan region of Nador as the movement of people and goods ensures the city’s daily life. This photo-essay illustrates how formal borders create sharp cuts within geographical and social continuities.
Table of Contents
Additional Information
External Links
Publisher
Version
Research Projects
Sponsorship and Funder Information
The work was supported by the European Research Council-funded project EU Border Care