Silence and intersectional resistance: the mobilisation of Moroccan temporary migrant women in Spain

Abstract

Every year since 2007, Moroccan temporary migrant women, known as the 'strawberry ladies' (Arab, 2018), have travelled to the province of Huelva, Spain to work as strawberry pickers. Morocco and Spain have signed an agreement allowing Spain to recruit Moroccan women each year, in order to meet a need for labour in the agricultural sector of southern Spain. This arrangement also ensures the transfer of foreign currency remittances back to Morocco while also fighting against irregular immigration. These women workers must then return to their homes in Morocco once their contracts are completed. This is a feminised and racialised segment of temporary agricultural work in Spain. The aim of this article is to analyse the political, social and daily conditions under which these women immigrate and work, conditions that produce complex forms of violence, insecurity and abuse, as well as inspiring strategies of resistance mobilised by these workers. Relationships of domination will be described in relation to class, race, gender and age.