Barone, S; (2019) Locked in Mobility: Negotiating Legal Residence in a Border Setting. The Case of Moroccan Women in Melilla, Spain. Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law , 33 (2)

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Abstract

This article explores how legality and mobility are at play in producing Moroccan migrant women’s unauthorised residence in the city of Melilla, a Spanish enclave situated on the African continent and sharing a terrestrial border with Morocco. Visa-free mobility between Melilla and its neighbouring Moroccan province of Nador is part of everyday life of people in this region (the Rif). While many Moroccan women move in and out of the city on a daily basis, some do stay on in Melilla and settle there. However, when they try to legalise their status and apply for a formal residence permit, the Spanish officials deny their petitions pointing to their special cross-border status and invoke the requirement of mobility, instead. I analyse the problematic enactment of the administrative practices that produce Moroccan women’s unauthorised residence, which I equate to a situation of ‘liminal legality’. Those practices are at odds with the stated intention of the Spanish legal framework regulating civil registries (called padrón in Spanish) and reveal an underpinning logic of migration control. Moreover, I adopt the framework of ‘legal consciousness’ to explore how Moroccan women’s claim to legality evolves through their often failed attempts to obtain legal residence. This mirrors their realisation of the ambiguity of the law, as both an inclusionary and exclusionary device, and sheds light on the dynamics of subordination and tactical resistance that unauthorised migrants go through when living under the law.

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